Transit on Thursday: Mo' Money Edition
Metro General Manager John Catoe held a roundtable with the press yesterday morning to take a look back at his first year as the city's top transit official. Both the Washington Post and the Examiner went with ledes focusing on the amount Catoe said Metro needs immediately, between $125 million and $150 million, for repairs to tracks, power stations and platforms. Catoe told reporters that Metro doesn't have the money to make these crucial repairs, and that he plans to present the agency's capital needs to the Metro board next month in order to review options for funding them.
WTOP concentrated more on Catoe's focus on safety in his first year, given the number of passenger and employee deaths that had occurred just before he took over Metro. Catoe also said that reliability will be the major focus of his second year, and that he has made fixing brakes and doors on some older model rail cars a top priority.
Catoe is hosting a live chat right now Friday at noon on WMATA's web site for passengers who'd like to direct questions to the General Manager.
Photo by Eye Captain
Metro Opens New Career Center: Thinking about giving that desk job for an exiting opportunity in public transportation? Metro has opened a new Career Center featuring online workstations and live professional support for people wishing to apply for jobs with the transit agency.
The Career Center is located at the lobby level of Metro’s headquarters at 600 5th Street NW. Metro Career Center employees are available to assist applicants from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Dulles Rail Victim of Bush Administration? There's plenty of blame to go around in the rapidly disintegrating Dulles Rail project, but on Wednesday the Associated Press quoted transit industry leaders who were suspicious that a Bush administration bias against public transportation is the reason the deal has started falling apart. Va. Rep. Jim Moran seems to agree, as he gave WTOP an earful blaming what looks to be the demise of the plan on "both political as well as budgetary reasons" on the part of the Bush administration.