Push on for oversight of DC’s Metro

Maryland's congressional delegation is scheduled to meet July 30 with the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which issued a scathing report this week on an "anemic safety culture" that contributed to last year's deadly Metro crash, the Gaithersburg, Md., Gazette reports. NTSB Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman recommended the federal government provide oversight for public transit systems the way it does for railroad systems through the Federal Railroad Administration.

The board announced that
the failure of the automatic train-control system caused the June 22, 2009,
crash that killed nine people near the Fort Totten Metro station, but that a
history of ignoring safety problems contributed to the system’s deadliest
crash.

"The layers of safety
deficiencies uncovered in this investigation are troubling and reveal systemic
failures," Hersman said. "Metro was on a collision course long before
this accident happened."

Among the board’s 23
recommendations was that the Federal Transit Administration be given oversight
of safety on public transit subway systems to ensure problems are fixed. Hersman
said it does not make sense that the federal government has oversight of the
rail tracks that run alongside the Metro tracks, but not of Metro and other
transit systems.

Metro officials were
"tone-deaf" to the lessons learned from past crashes and failed to
follow through on earlier recommendations, Hersman said.

"They are not hearing
it, they are not getting it and they are not addressing the problems," she
said. "Our frustration is that if they don’t listen this time, I am not
sure what can be done."

U.S. Rep. Christopher Van
Hollen (D-Dist. 8) of Kensington agreed Congress should pass legislation to
give the Federal Transit Administration oversight authority over Metro and
other transit systems.

"This report clearly
shows that last year’s accident was both a technical and organizational failure
at an agency where safety was not the priority it should have been," Van
Hollen said. "We cannot and will not accept a continuation of the failures
that led to last year’s terrible tragedy."

Metro carries more than
600,000 passengers daily and is generally safer than the highways, Hersman
said. The 13 deaths in Metro’s 34-year history are comparable to the tally
every two weeks on the region’s highways, she said.

But the board hammered
Metro for failing to provide enough testing of track signals and for not
replacing aging 1000 Series cars that did not afford collision protection.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski
(D) of Baltimore has introduced a transportation-funding bill for Metro that
requires Metro officials to make quarterly reports to Congress measuring safety
improvements. The bill also calls for $5 million to establish a Federal Transit
Administration Office of Safety to develop new safety regulations for transit
systems nationally.

"We won’t tolerate a
system that does not place safety as its top priority," Mikulski said.

Maryland Transit
Administration spokesman David Clark said the department had not issued a
statement on the possibility of federal oversight of the transit systems. The
MTA operates the Baltimore subway system and is part of the Tri-state Oversight
Committee, which oversees safety on Metro.

Metro has overhauled its
safety program and has taken dozens of actions to build a strong safety culture
at the transit agency, Metro officials said.

"Just as we have
worked proactively and cooperatively with the NTSB to implement recommendations
during the last year in advance of the NTSB’s final findings, we stand ready to
continue to work with them to build on our progress to date," said Metro
interim general manager Richard Sarles in a statement. "We have begun to see
the beginning of a safety culture shift from one that was reactive to one that
is proactive in taking steps to solve and correct issues so that issues don’t
become problems."