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| Metro could shut down entire rail lines to do extended maintenance, board chair says | Metro could shut down entire rail lines to do extended maintenance, board chair says |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Metro’s top officials warned Wednesday that the transit system is in such need of repair that they might shut down entire rail lines for as long as six months for maintenance, potentially snarling thousands of daily commutes and worsening congestion in the already traffic-clogged region. | |
| Board Chairman Jack Evans and General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld put rail riders on notice about possible extended closures at a high-level conference of local leaders. The discussion also revealed strong resistance to what Evans said was a “dire” need for more than $1 billion a year in additional funding for Metro. | |
| The officials’ comments underlined the depth of Metro’s problems, which are steadily becoming more apparent as Wiedefeld continues to probe the rail system’s defects since he took over as the transit agency’s chief executive in November. | |
| Until now, Metro has typically done repair work at night or during short shutdowns over weekends. | |
| An exception was the unprecedented shutdown of the entire system on a regular workday March 16 for emergency track safety inspections. Wiedefeld ordered that closure in what now seems to have been an initial taste of more bitter medicine to follow. | |
| “The system right now, in order to do the maintenance that needs to be done, cannot be done on three hours a night and on weekends. It just can’t,” said Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member (D-Ward 2). | “The system right now, in order to do the maintenance that needs to be done, cannot be done on three hours a night and on weekends. It just can’t,” said Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member (D-Ward 2). |
| “So in order to do repairs that are necessary, it may come to the point where we have to close the entire Blue Line for six months. People will go crazy. But there are going to be hard decisions that have to be made in order to get this fixed,” Evans said. | “So in order to do repairs that are necessary, it may come to the point where we have to close the entire Blue Line for six months. People will go crazy. But there are going to be hard decisions that have to be made in order to get this fixed,” Evans said. |
| At a minimum, Evans said, Metro will have to shut segments of lines for extended periods. Although he twice singled out the Blue Line as a candidate for closure, Evans said any of Metro’s six lines could be shuttered. He said the Red Line was the least likely to be shut, because much repair work has already been done on it. | |
| “That’s up to Paul [Wiedefeld]. He’s the operations guy. I’m just the board member,” Evans said. | “That’s up to Paul [Wiedefeld]. He’s the operations guy. I’m just the board member,” Evans said. |
| Wiedefeld confirmed he was considering such lengthy closures, but hasn’t made a decision yet. He said he expected to do so within a month to six weeks. | |
| “I’m keeping all my options open,” Wiedefeld said. “There are some bigger issues here in terms of power and track. ... In the last few years, we’ve been trying to do this [maintenance] in a sort of piecemeal way, and basically we’ve alienated everyone.” | |
| The officials spoke to 100 government officials, business executives and transit experts at an invitation-only “summit” called to mark the 40th anniversary of Metro’s opening by discussing how to restore it to its original “world-class” quality. | |
| The response in the audience was mixed regarding the prospect of lengthy shutdowns. Montgomery Council Member Marc Elrich (D-At Large) said closing an entire line for six months would be “a disaster.” He suggested stopping service earlier in the evenings to allow more time for maintenance. | |
| But Fairfax County Supervisor Penny Gross (D-Mason) said she would support such measures if Metro considered them necessary to fix the troubled system. | |
| In limited shutdowns that have been used in the past, Gross said, “You can do the band-aids, but you can’t do the surgery.” | |
| Harriet Tregoning, who represents the federal government on the Metro board, praised Evans and Wiedefeld for being candid about the system’s condition. | |
| “I’ve been telling Metro for a long time, ‘Quit telling us what you think we want to hear, and tell us what needs to happen,’ ... and then let’s see what the options are,” said Tregoning, a principal deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. | |
| Tregoning said the impact on the federal workforce, which relies heavily on Metro to get to work, could be reduced by various means such as increased use of telework and adding express buses. | |
| An extended shutdown for maintenance would be a first for Metro, but other transit systems have taken such steps as the nation’s transit infrastructure has deteriorated, partly because of lack of investment. | |
| Chicago shut down a 10-mile stretch of rail line for five months in 2013 to rebuild it and end chronic delays. The Maryland Transit Administration plans to shut down a stretch of the Baltimore subway system from July 23 to Aug. 12, to replace major rail components. | |
| Wiedefeld’s predecessor, former general manager Richard Sarles, ruled out extended closures for maintenance purposes, on grounds that they would be too disruptive. | |
| The forum, called “Metrorail at 40: Restoring a World Class System,” took place in an elegant room at the Mayflower Hotel. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and the Greater Washington Board of Trade organized it to launch what they hope will be a yearlong effort to increase support for Metro among local governments, business leaders and other parties. | |
| Evans, who was elected board chairman in January, used the occasion to sound what he presented as an urgent alarm about the need for dramatically increased funding for Metro. | |
| He said the District, Maryland and Virginia should create a dedicated funding source, such as a regionwide sales tax, to provide an additional $1 billion a year to Metro for capital investment such as maintenance. He also said the federal government needed to provide $300 million a year in additional money for operations. | |
| “If we don’t have that, we’re never going to get to be a world-class system,” Evans said. | |
| He also said that the three local jurisdictions would have to increase their contributions next year in order to cover increased labor costs that he said were sure to result from negotiations beginning Friday over new union contracts. | |
| But several influential local officials expressed skepticism about Evans’s pleas. In particular, Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn said Metro needed to improve its performance on safety, financial management and other matters before local jurisdictions would contribute more. | |
| “Until the house is in order, it’s going to be difficult to get additional funding for anything,” Rahn said. | |
| Fairfax Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova (D) also expressed apprehension. | |
| “I don’t agree that increased costs for operations [next year] is a given, and I don’t think that’s a good way to start a discussion regarding financing,” said Bulova, whose county is a major contributor to Metro’s budget. | |
| “I’m not sure he [Evans] fully appreciates how much comes out of local jurisdictions,” Bulova said. | |
| Evans conceded that he faced opposition. | |
| “Listening to the comments, I’m not sure that a lot of people are on board yet. I think today’s meeting was an informational session to really alert people of the dire circumstances,” Evans said. | |
| COG Chairman Roger Berliner, who in January was first to propose the forum, said it was necessary to work harder to overcome the resistance to a dedicated funding source for Metro. | |
| “We’re going to have to change that equation,” said Berliner, who is also a Montgomery Council member (D-Potomac-Bethesda). “We can’t afford to wait.” | |
| Read more: | Read more: |
| After shutdown, Metro riders ask what’s next | After shutdown, Metro riders ask what’s next |
| Why Metro’s shutdown might be a good thing | Why Metro’s shutdown might be a good thing |
| After subway shutdown, will drastic action become Metro’s new normal? | After subway shutdown, will drastic action become Metro’s new normal? |