WASHINGTON – (WMAL)

It appears the way they connect and communicate with their customers isn’t helping the cause.

“I think a lot of people do feel lied to,” said Greater Greater Washington founder David Alpert. “Each (crisis) you can point to something that management knew about, and didn’t share.”

In the L’Enfant smoke incident last January, it was the underground communication problems they knew about but hadn’t worked on. In the Smithsonian derailment this past summer, it was a track defect they had detected but hadn’t fixed.

“Now we’ve also gotten into a situation where management has lost the confidence of riders in basically trusting them in what they say,” Alpert said. “The reputation ends up being worse when it’s a surprise. So I think they have to shoot for not surprising riders so much about all the problems that are under the surface.”

Alpert maintains Metro would gain trust, and maybe even patience from passengers by being more up front about what they’re working on.

“That communication has to be more than just ‘We’re rebuilding, trust us. Everything is going to get better!’ because at some point, I think that started to ring hollow.”

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