Washington, D.C.’s Metrorail was once a model for public transit in the U.S. On the eve of its 40th birthday, the system is rife with safety, operational and management problems. Now, its recently appointed general manager is determined to do something about them.
In his first major public policy statement since taking the reins of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority last November, Paul Wiedefeld said the agency must “confront some hard truths” about issues that have eroded the system’s reliability and efficiency. Topping the list is the absence of a fully integrated safety culture, evidenced by a series of recent derailments, and a January 2015 tunnel-smoke incident that left one passenger dead and injured several others.