Following Derailment Norton Wants Hearing On Maintenance Backlog As Root Of Metro's Multiple Problems
Press Release
Following this morning's Metro train derailment, in preparation for the second $150 million installment of federal matching funds for Metro's capital costs, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today she will ask the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to hold a hearing on Metro's maintenance backlog and its implication for the safety of Metro riders and for timely operations. "Metro has a shortfall of billions in capital funding needed to maintain the system and appears to lack the resources to pay for immediate upgrades," Norton said. "Today's derailment is only the latest indicator that years of delayed and insufficient maintenance and replacement of obsolete equipment are at the root of Metro's accidents, delays and increasing operating difficulties apparently even beyond the problems facing similar systems. With day-to-day federal operations and Metro joined at the hip, Congress and the public need to know much more about how Metro will fix a system now in late middle age and in what priority."
All the cars in the June 22 accident where fatalities occurred were 1970s vintage cars, but Norton said they are only the tip of the iceberg of Metro's obsolete equipment. Norton has introduced a bill clarifying that the National Transportation Safety Board should recommend appropriate interim corrective actions, in addition to the usual more costly long-range recommendations, because many rail systems cannot purchase costly new equipment and intermediate steps could save lives. While Norton also is a co-sponsor of a bill for national transit regulation, she said that regulations will not solve Metro's maintenance backlog.
The federal government partially funded Metro's construction and today federal employees constitute almost half of Metro's rush-hour ridership. Norton has already asked that any reimbursement to D.C. and the region because of the record snowfall include Metro's costs, at a time when Metro is gasping simply to keep up with its daily operating obligations.
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