The Downward Spiral Continues

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is increasingly dysfunctional. DC’s subway system is designed to run eight-car trains but due to lack of equipment two-thirds of the trains operating during rush hour have only six cars even though they are packed full of people. WMATA has asked Virginia, Maryland, and DC for nearly $1.5 billion so it can purchase new equipment and upgrade its system to allow a return to eight-car trains.

The Maryland secretary of transportation, Pete Rahn, says the state is reluctant to give hundreds of millions of dollars to an agency as poorly run as WMATA. As an example of poor management, Rahn pointed to a dispute among the agency’s board over what kind of person should replace the agency’s general manager, Richard Sarles, who retired from his $366,000 a year job in January.

Some on the board wanted to hire a “turnaround expert” who could restore the agency’s fortunes. Others wanted to hire someone with more experience in the transit industry. The dispute became so serious that the mayor of Washington proposed to dismiss board member (and last year’s board chair) Tom Downs, who favored hiring someone with more transit expertise, because he disagreed with the mayor’s desire for a turnaround expert. In response, three candidates who were being considered for the job withdrew their applications.

It isn’t really clear what someone who has had experience turning around for-profit corporations would be able to bring to the job of transit agency CEO. So much of the agency is fixed–infrastructure, union agreements, local budgets for tax subsidies–that someone who is used to fixing sick companies by selling off assets or cutting staff wouldn’t have many opportunities to fix a transit agency.

Common Chiropractor Positive aspects Inability cheap levitra on line in your musculoskeletal system doesn’t exclude anyone. The cialis generic cheapest plaintiff claims he experienced libido orgasm, reduction and ejaculation dysfunction, fatigue and depression. Users can get rid of them by taking precautions overnight cialis such as:1) Timely consumption2) Uniform consumption of tablets3) No consumption of alcohol as that too causes irregular blood pressure. Thus, the necessary medications will be delivered right to your doorstep making it cipla india viagra highly convenient. Meanwhile, Moody’s has downgraded Metro’s economic outlook, which will force the agency to pay higher interest rates for any money it borrows. Moody’s said that this downgrade resulted from a chain of bad management decisions.

Apparently, the agency had failed to apply for federal grants in a timely manner, leaving it short of cash. So it took out short-term loans to carry it over until federal grants came through, leading its short-term debt to grow enough to exceed its long-term debt. Debt payments are due in June and Moody’s hinted that the agency might not be able to make those payments.

One piece of good news was that WMATA was able to restore computerized train operation to the Red Line last year, more than five years after a crash in which nine people died when a computer-controlled train going nearly 50 miles per hour slammed into a stationary train. A relative of one of the people killed in that accident fretted that, “you can’t risk human beings to some computer,” but it isn’t clear that human-driven trains are any safer considering a Chicago train crash that took place when the operator fell asleep on the job.

On a recent trip to DC, the Antiplanner was on a Blue Line train that stopped at a station and sat for at least five minutes without opening the doors. Finally the train started up again and proceeded to the next station without ever loading and unloading passengers at the five-minute stop. The only explanation I could think of was that the operator had fallen asleep at the station.

Short of a sugar daddy coming up with billions of dollars, it isn’t clear that there is any fix for WMATA’s woes. Trains are expensive and getting more expensive to run every day. The system is at capacity in many places and expansions to resolve those capacity problems would cost tens of billions of dollars. Since WMATA can’t even afford to maintain the lines it has, spending billions building new lines would just be one more example of mismanagement.