WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on the problem-plagued DC Metro transit system.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Government Operations will hold the 9 a.m. EST hearing on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s “responsibility to provide safe and reliable transit service to the National Capital Region,” according to a press release.
Set to appear are WMATA General Manager Paul Wiedefeld, Inspector General Geoffrey Cherrington, board of directors Chairman Paul Smedberg, and David Mayer, CEO of the independent Washington Metrorail Safety Commission.
The hearing will be live streamed on the committee’s YouTube channel and its website.
WMATA’s Metrorail system has been operating at reduced frequency since an October derailment, blamed on a wheel defect, led to the safety commission ordering the removal of the system’s newest rolling stock, the Kawasaki-built 7000-series cars that comprise about 60% of the system’s railcars [see “DC Metrorail service to be limited …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 18, 2021]. An effort to return those cars to service was halted when the safety commission ordered the cars sidelined a second time, finding that an inspection program agreed to by Metrorail was not being followed [see “DC Metrorail 7000-series cars again removed from service,” News Wire, Dec. 30, 2021]. The cars are now not expected to be returned to service until at least April.
The system has seen other safety and operating issues ranging from a highly critical 2020 report describing a “toxic workplace” at its Rail Operations Control Center to an incident in which a supervisor was reportedly watching video on his computer when a train made a wrong-way departure from a station [see “Metrorail supervisor was watching streaming video …,” News Wire, Dec. 8, 2021].
A Senate committee has also begun looking into the Metrorail problems [see “Senate Committee to look into DC Metrorail wheel defect,” Dec. 13, 2021]. As Reuters reports, Congress provides substantial funding for the transit system, which the House subcommittee calls an “essential component of transit for the functioning of the federal government.”
I’m not sure which is more “problem-plagued” – the DC Metro System, or the House and Senate that will conduct the investigations.
How was this “SUPERVISOR” hired? Is he still on the payroll? Inexcusable!
As a SUPERVISOR he may have had nothing to do with the incident, only that it happened on his supervisory watch.