Metro General Manager/CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld today released SafeTrack, an expanded track work plan to improve Metrorail safety and restore service reliability. Totten stations stops for 23 days from October 9 to November 2; the second longest station shutdown is planned from August 20 to September 6 from Eastern Market to Minnesota Ave and Benning Road, impacting the Blue, Orange, Yellow and Silver Lines.
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“In my estimation, we have to do something different and dramatically different”, Wiedefeld said. “We have to begin by understanding that safety trumps inconvenience”. WMATA’s bond rating was downgraded Thursday by Moody’s, but Metro Chairman Jack Evans it remains high enough where the agency still has “enormous debt ability”.
The plan includes a moratorium on extended hours; in addition, the system will shut down at midnight instead of 3 a.m., on Saturday and Sunday mornings, starting June 3.
Wiedefeld said single-tracking for 21 days straight will enable crews to finish work that would otherwise take 10 weekends.
Wiedefeld said there is no price tag for the effort yet but that a portion of the money will come from money that set for future use. According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, transit operators face a fix and replacement backlog of $86 billion, including everything from buses and train cars to power systems, tracks, and communications equipment, among other needs.
Much of the maintenance neglect, under previous generations of Metro leadership, resulted from public pressure to keep the subway operating at full capacity, for economic and convenience reasons, and from a push for Metro expansion by the transit agency’s directors and political leaders in the Washington area.
During a press conference on Friday, President Obama spoke about his proposed infrastructure spending plan, highlighting WMATA’s woes as “just one more example of the under-investments that have been made”.
Here’s what Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) had to say about the plan. Still, riders may adjust their ways of getting around or telecommute, so Metro could see a big loss of revenue over the next year.
“We need to get that into a state of good fix”, Wiedefeld said.
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“The general manager’s plan, as he’s outlined it to me, is aggressive but necessary”.
