RICHMOND — Metro has not been able to maintain operations and keep the public safe, Virginia’s transportation secretary says.
“It’s not a popularity contest. This is not about making sure everybody’s happy,” Aubrey Layne said. “This is about running a business and making sure our traveling public’s safe, and they have proven that they have not been able to do that up to date.”
Some riders are now unsure about whether they should be comfortable using the system since news emerged that an Aug. 6 derailment was caused by a dangerous problem Metro knew about a month earlier but never fixed.
Layne said he understood how those riders felt. “The overall safety record has been relatively good, but there’s no excuse for what happened,” he said.
Jennifer Mitchell, the head of Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation, said that while she understands riders can get frustrated, “I’d say keep riding. It is still overwhelmingly a very, very safe system. We certainly recognize that commuters are very frustrated by the delays … and when they don’t get information about their trip … but Metro is still very safe and we don’t want people to stop using it.”
The Metro Board’s safety committee is expected to meet Sept. 3 to review an investigation into the Aug. 6 derailment of a train that was about to go into service near the Smithsonian station. The derailment was caused by the two rails being too far apart and seriously impacted three rush hours. No one was hurt.
Rob Troup, Metro’s deputy general manager, said the track should have been immediately taken out of service for repairs when the problem was detected in July. The initial investigation is due Monday into how the track issue could have been left alone for weeks.
Meanwhile, Metro is searching for a new leader. Layne and Mitchell agreed that a lack of leadership is Metro’s biggest problem right now.
“We can talk about long-term stuff, but in the short-term it falls to the [Metro] Board,” Layne said. “If they’re not up to it, I’m going to talk to our people and we’ll replace them, because we’ve got to find somebody that’s going to take responsibility.”
Metro first started a search for a general manager nearly a year ago, before Richard Sarles retired in January. Jack Requa has been Metro’s interim leader since.
The initial general manager search was halted amid a dispute about the type of leader Maryland, Virginia and D.C. leaders preferred to run the agency.
