The Antiplanner

More Bureaucracy Won’t Make Transit Safe

9th March 2010

More Bureaucracy Won’t Make Transit Safe

posted in News commentary, Transportation |

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.

To make matters worse, the FTA allowed the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) write the safety manual that the FTA then encouraged states to follow. APTA’s primary goal is to direct the maximum amount of federal dollars to its member transit agencies and, in turn, to the various companies that profit from the transit industry. APTA knows that Congress prefers to fund new construction over maintenance, and making the safety rules too rigorous might threaten such construction funds.

The administration’s solution is new legislation that would give the FTA authority over rail safety. While this will surely create jobs for bureaucrats, it isn’t clear to the Antiplanner how it will improve rail safety.

Consider what happens when companies in the private sector have safety problems. They get sued, often for millions of dollars. Other costly actions may be required to fix the problem. Meanwhile, sales plummet as customers move to the competition.

The situation is completely different for public agencies. Many states set liability limits for accidents. For example, the limit in Texas is a mere $100,000 per victim. Even if there were no limits, what would happen to an agency that lost a major lawsuit? It would simply get the taxpayers to cover the cost. At most, the agency head would “take the fall” for the problem and retire with a fat pension.

Some think that giving the FTA safety authority will fix this problem. After all, the FTA dispenses billions of dollars in grants to transit agencies each year. All it would have to do is say, “fix your safety problems or no more grants.”

The problem with this is that the FTA exists in a highly politicized environment. The agencies would argue that they can’t fix the safety problems if the FTA doesn’t give them any money. Congress would pressure the FTA to hand out the money anyway or persuade the president to simply overrule the agency.

For an example we don’t have to look any further than Washington Metrorail. Two years ago, the Federal Transit Administration denied funding for a $5 billion Metrorail extension to Dulles Airport, saying that WMATA couldn’t even safely run the system it had, much less an expanded system. But lobbying by Virginia’s congressional delegation persuaded President Bush to overturn this decision.

The real solution is to privatize transit. Short of that, the SSOs could be given real teeth by requiring that they be led by safety engineers, not politicians, and giving them the authority to halt federal and state funding of rail expansions and operations until safety issues are fully funded.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under News commentary, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. 1 On March 9th, 2010, Frank said:

    “The real solution is to privatize transit.”

    Yes.

    And before the village idiot accuses you of being anti-rail, consider that Portland’s rail was once private and carried millions of passengers.

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 6:34 am

  2. 2 On March 9th, 2010, blacquejacqueshellac said:

    Morning Frank, right on, perhaps he’s ill, I’ll substitute:

    “Yngvi is a louse!”

    Why do governments, especially municipalities, assert a right to a transit monopoly? Historically considered a utility? It makes sense for trains, as they need rights to seize land, if trains make sense, which so far, nobody has proved, and the evidence seems contra.

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 7:05 am

  3. 3 On March 9th, 2010, C. P. Zilliacus said:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    > The situation is completely different for public agencies.
    > Many states set liability limits for accidents. For example,
    > the limit in Texas is a mere $100,000 per victim. Even if
    > there were no limits, what would happen to an agency that
    > lost a major lawsuit? It would simply get the taxpayers to
    > cover the cost. At most, the agency head would “take the fall”
    > for the problem and retire with a fat pension.

    Your timing seems to be good. From WTOP Radio (the all-news CBS Radio station in Washington) on the Web comes this:

    Fatal Red Line crash cost Metro $25.5M

    The memo says four rail cars were destroyed at a cost of $12 million, while the other cars involved had $3 million worth of damage. Metro spent another $3 million to run shuttle buses and it also had to pay for cleanup, police security of the accident scene and overtime.

    Metro says it is trying to recoup about $24 million through its property insurance.

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 10:22 am

  4. 4 On March 9th, 2010, C. P. Zilliacus said:

    And this article from the Washington Examiner, on which the WTOP Radio story was based.

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 10:30 am

  5. 5 On March 9th, 2010, Frank said:

    Morning, Blacque.

    Here’s more evidence that screams for privatization of transit (via Cascade Policy Institute):

    Operating cost per vehicle hour:
    Bus: $108.71
    MAX: $303.50
    WES: $1,092.86

    Operating cost per originating ride:
    Bus: $4.39
    MAX: $2.69
    WES: $24.00

    Operating cost per vehicle mile:
    Bus: $8.39
    MAX: $17.48
    WES: $49.83

    Talk about a hefty subsidy!

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 12:15 pm

  6. 6 On March 9th, 2010, Dan said:

    Here’s more evidence that screams for privatization of eating:

    Public Employee 1 BMI: 28.7
    Public Employee 2 BMI: 33.2
    Public Employee 3 BMI: 31.2

    talk about hefty!

    DS

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 3:02 pm

  7. 7 On March 9th, 2010, ws said:

    Frank:

    Your numbers actually don’t say much about subsidies, just costs:

    http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/publications/performance-statistics/trimetridershipfy09.pdf

    Subsidy/boarding ride:

    $2.06 Bus
    $0.94 MAX
    $17.92 WES

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 3:06 pm

  8. 8 On March 9th, 2010, Scott said:

    If food was on a public system, such as:
    1/3 price to the consumer;
    single-payer;
    buffet (all you can eat) card;
    pay one price for choice of all grocery products,
    then obesity would greatly increase.

    Freedom allows people to have bad eating habits & not to exercise.
    Should government force us all to be real healthy?
    Look how well the war on drug users is going.
    People are aware of the negatives with being fat & unhealthy, and choose accordingly.
    Maybe it’s not worth it to them, & they enjoy eating & relaxing a lot.
    Does gov own each person?

    Actually if health deform like BO wants is passed, big bro will have much more authority to control many behaviors.

    For those figs given, if bus passenger load doubled, then the operating costs would be about the same as the rail.

    Operating costs, only, leaves out a considerable amount.
    The capital cost, including interest, should be averaged & accounted for.
    The train cars alone, compared to buses, will be more.
    Now take the track infrastructure. New LRT lines have averaged up $100 million/mile.

    posted on March 9th, 2010 at 8:28 pm

  9. 9 On March 10th, 2010, Andy said:

    Dan pretty much proved again he is just a troll. He was moderate for a few days after meeting the Antiplanner, but his rush wore off quickly.

    We all wish he could articulate an intelligent rebuttal to the Antiplanner’s article of the day, as that would be interesting. But instead he just spews hate and irrelevant odd statements.

    Dan, get your own website. You post more here than any other person, including the Antiplanner, and you always have to have the last word. Try “DanTheTroll.com” or “DanHatesAntiplanner.com” or “DanIsTheSmartestPersonInTheWorld.com”.

    I will even pay for it.

    posted on March 10th, 2010 at 6:37 am

  10. 10 On March 10th, 2010, Frank said:

    I’ll chip in.

    I’ll even help set it up.

    Dan can waste taxpayer money by logging on to that site instead of this one during his workday.

    posted on March 10th, 2010 at 6:44 am

  11. 11 On March 10th, 2010, Dan said:

    So the three stooges don’t like having weak…um…”argumentation” pointed out, so they make sh– up. At least how they do it is no different than how everyone else in that demographic reacts. And at least they have easily-apprehended transparency. That’s something to build on, surely – clear identity.

    I checked the trades this morning: no RFPs or bond offerings for private companies to raise, invest, spend, maintain, and run multibillion dollar infrastructure. No banks offering loans for such. Must be due to the cabal of 50K/yr power-broker plannurz and their highly-educated dupes.

    DS

    posted on March 10th, 2010 at 7:07 am

  12. 12 On March 10th, 2010, Frank said:

    Andy said: “You [Dan] post more here than any other person, including the Antiplanner, and you always have to have the last word.”

    Astute observation proved correct yet again.

    And it’s not a cabal of planners that have choked the credit spigots. It’s a cartel of banks in collusion with the federal government we can thank for the dry well.

    Capital comes from savings which is lent to business. The savings rate is abysmally low. Why? The Federal Reserve artificially sets the rates extremely low. It discourages saving which severely impacts lending. Banks received the wrong signals from the Fed and lent themselves into precarious positions, usually using our DDAs.

    Go ahead. Comment again. You know you can’t control yourself.

    Troll on.

    posted on March 10th, 2010 at 11:50 am

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