Metro Pushes Back on GAO Report Asserting SafeTrack was Rushed

Steve Burns
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON – (WMAL) Wednesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill with Metro leaders was not as contentious as previous ones, but still featured some pushback from Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld after a Government Accountability Office Report asserted Metro leaders botched the rollout of SafeTrack.

“I could not live with myself not doing something as quickly as we could,” Wiedefeld told the House Subcommittee on Government Operations. “We are concerned that the report does not accurately reflect the true level of crisis and urgent safety challenges the agency was facing almost one year ago,” he said.

The report, presented by GAO Physical Infrastructure Director Mark Goldstein, said Metro did not collect sufficient data on the system’s defects to accurately prioritize its needs, and did not sufficiently analyze alternatives to the project.

“It’s not prudent, or appropriate, to embark on any major capital project, spending up to $130 million, without a plan,” Goldstein said.

Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), long a Metro rider and proponent, seemed to agree with Wiedefeld’s reasoning that public safety was at risk.

“They determined the situation they inherited was sufficiently dire, that we couldn’t exactly (plan) perfectly,” he said. “We didn’t have another six months.”

While the GAO report was the stated motive behind calling Wednesday’s hearing, the conversation turned to other topics, including funding.

“The tin cup approach to financing Metro has to end. It doesn’t work anymore,” Connolly said. “In the long run, stability to Metro is going to be about financial stability.”

Wiedefeld acknowledged the system’s financial situation is only getting more dire, and he said costs would not be met under the current funding structure without “unbelievable” fare increases.

“One of the biggest challenges we have is continuing to meet customer demands with the limited dollars we have,” he said.

Reports on Metro’s finances over the next three years and the next ten will be released next month, Wiedefeld said.

Connolly has long called for the federal government to no longer be a “free rider,” and contribute to funding Metro just as the District, Maryland and Virginia do. He may have found an unlikely ally in Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC), who chairs the committee and is also chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, which recently derailed the GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

“I’m willing to support (Connolly’s) efforts to make sure that we get this right, and that means potentially spending political capital in ways that I wouldn’t normally spend them,” Meadows said. “I get more complaints about WMATA here in the District than anything else.”

However, Meadows alluded to the need for further cooperation from Metro’s largest transit union, ATU Local 689, before he commits to any more assistance. The union is set to release its plan to fix Metro on Wednesday, titled “Fix it, Fund it, Make it Fair”. However, the union was the subject of some less-than-pleasant sentiments at the hearing Tuesday.

“There is a personnel problem at Metro,” Connolly said. “Mr. Wiedefeld is the first General Manager in my memory who has had the intestinal fortitude to impose discipline.”

Connolly brought up track inspectors who were terminated for falsifying reports, and train operators who ran red lights and subsequently saw discipline. Wiedefeld said the agency is also starting to crack down on sick days as of a new policy implemented March 1.

“You’re allowed to get sick, but after so many, basically, we can start to do discipline,” he said. “For anyone that’s out more than two days, then it has to go to medical, and not a supervisor making those decisions, to grant additional days off for sickness.”

But Wiedefeld inserted an olive branch, too.

“We continue to reach out to the union to work together to solve these issues,” he said. “We’re not going to solve them, either one of us, independently.”

Union members could be seen shaking their heads in the hearing room.