NTSB report on D.C. metro crash may impact transit systems nationwide

The announcement by the National Transportation Safety Board on July 27 on the likely cause of the June 2009 Washington, D.C., Metro crash might have major safety and financial implications for transit systems nationwide, the Washington Post reports. Federal investigators have focused on the failure of Metro's automatic train-control system in the accident, in which one train slammed into the back of another that was stopped north of the Fort Totten Metro station in Northeast Washington. The accident killed a train operator and eight passengers, injured scores of others and caused $25 million in damage.

But the NTSB meeting is
expected to go well beyond a narrow conclusion on the causes of last year’s
crash, both because of the spate of accidents that have plagued Metro and
possible consequences for other subway systems, according to Metro and NTSB
officials.

Questions remain about how
Metro would carry out the recommendations, which the NTSB makes without regard
to cost and has no statutory power to enforce. The mission of the NTSB is to
conduct objective investigations to determine the probable causes of transportation
accidents and to recommend ways to prevent them. Metro is not required by law
to implement the NTSB recommendations but has set aside $30 million in its
capital budget for three years to carry out any changes, Metro Interim General
Manager Richard Sarles said. But Metro officials acknowledge that the
recommendations could involve much higher costs over a longer time period.

"Any recommendation
will probably be a long-term effort" and would require Maryland, Virginia
and the District to agree on a reprogramming of funds in Metro’s six-year, $5
billion capital funding agreement, Metro Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal
said.

The Obama administration is
pushing legislation that would grant the Federal Transit Administration
unprecedented regulatory authority over Metro and other public transit systems,
but that remains stalled in the House. Absent such authority, the FTA has
reserved the right to revisit its approval for urgent Metro safety improvement
projects, and to modify the list of projects, to make sure the spending is in
line with NTSB recommendations, according to FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff in
a letter to Metro this month. That list of projects includes $220 million worth
of capital improvements and was expanded July 26 to include approval for funding
for Metro’s procurement of 300 rail cars to replace the oldest cars in the
transit agency’s fleet.

"We’ve been getting
more lip service than real service from Metro," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski
(D-Md.) said. "Metro must fully implement the recommendations of the
National Transportation Safety Board report," which will contain
"lessons learned" for all the nation’s transit agencies.

"Congress must also do
its part by passing legislation that gives the U.S. Department of Transportation
the authority to establish and enforce federal safety standards for U.S.
transit systems and to make sure that Metro’s budget focuses on safety
improvements," Mikulski said.

Metro faces four open NTSB
investigations, more than any other transit agency in the history of the NTSB,
according to NTSB spokeswoman Bridget Serchak. "In the 42 years we have
been around, no one seems to recall that we have had four open investigations
on any transit agency," she said.

As a result, the NTSB probe
has examined possible connections between the incidents and the overarching
lack of a robust safety culture and oversight at Metro, which has the
second-busiest rail system in the nation. The NTSB rarely has the opportunity
to explore safety issues at urban subway systems, Serchak said.

"This allows us to
delve into [Metro] as an organization, as well as a broad brush opportunity to
look at the transit community," she said. "We can only do things in
conjunction with an accident."

Most accidents are less
complex and involve fewer parties, Serchak said. But the NTSB held a
wide-ranging three-day hearing in February to look at the Red Line crash and
broader issues, such as how Metro identifies and corrects safety hazards and
the adequacy of state and federal oversight. The hearing took sworn testimony
from nearly two dozen witnesses, including a Metro engineer who acknowledged
that Metro’s automatic crash-avoidance system had failed twice before the June
accident, causing near misses, despite Metro’s initial claims that it was a
freak occurrence. Metro’s decision to mix brands of signaling equipment,
despite the manufacturer’s warning, could have caused the June crash, said a
representative of the company, Alstom, at the hearing.

At the meeting July 27,
federal investigators will present their final report. After questions and
answers, the five-person board will conduct three votes: on the findings, the
cause and the recommendations. It will then vote on whether to adopt the
report.

The board issued several
safety recommendations last year, urging Metro to inspect track circuits and
install a real-time backup to the automated train-control system, and has
advised other transit agencies to make sure they have adequate safety
redundancy. The board has also scrutinized Metro’s maintenance of train-control
components as well as its procedures for testing them. A Metro crew replaced a
key piece of circuitry five days before the accident, but the equipment
malfunctioned and Metro failed to detect the problem.

Sarles said that Metro has
moved aggressively to comply with the NTSB’s recommendations. Metro has
instituted a twice-daily evaluation of track circuits and established tests to
identify track circuits susceptible to the kind of failure linked to the June
2009 crash, he said. It is working on a real-time, 24-hour-a-day automatic
track circuit monitoring system and plans to implement that in December, Metro
said. Metro is also working on procuring an automatic train-control back-up
system that would allow the agency to consider returning to automatic
operations.

In response to earlier NTSB
recommendations, Metro has begun installing rollback protection on its rail
cars and guarded switches, which help keep the wheels on the track when the
train switches from one track to another to decrease the risk of derailments,
and has beefed up its safety office and oversight.