The head of Washington, D.C.’s beleaguered Metrorail system recently told Congress his agency “had to move and move quickly” in launching an accelerated infrastructure maintenance program in 2016, despite lacking a budget or management plan to guide what could be a $118-million effort to restore the 118-mile system.
A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study was critical of how the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority planned and implemented the repair program, known as SafeTrack. But at a March 29 hearing before the House government operations subcommittee, WMATA General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said the report “does not clearly express the true level of crisis and safety challenges” the agency faced when the program began in May 2016.