Last week, the Federal Transit Administration presented a “scathing report” on Washington Metrorail safety programs. The report itself found that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) frequently failed to comply with or even respond to safety requirements and investigations of the agency that has oversight authority over Metrorail safety.
Back in 1991, Congress asked the Federal Transit Administration to create a state-based transit safety program. After a mere 4 years, the FTA responded with rules (updated in 2005) requiring each state that has a rail transit system to create a state safety oversight (SSO) authority. Because the Washington Metrorail system crosses from DC into two states, its SSO is called the Tri-State (even though DC is not a state) Oversight Committee (TOC).
What the 1991 law and FTA rules did not do is give the SSOs any legal authority to compel transit agencies to improve safety. As FTA administrator Peter Rogoff told Congress on March 4, transit agencies “don’t have to respond to [the SSOs] in a timely way. In fact, they don’t have to respond to them at all.” Thus, it is not surprising that the SSO system failed to prevent accidents such as the one last June that killed 9 people in DC.
