The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority held their first-ever annual town hall meeting last night at their downtown D.C. headquarters.

Although enduring periodic jeers and spontaneous audience feedback, the meeting was, overall, remarkably civil for an agency who has been in the news for a string of problems in recent months. They announced that answers to all questions submitted would be posted on their website within a week.

The discussion, ably moderated by former Post columnist Bob Levey, centered mostly on issues already widely reported in the media: handicap accessibility (one questioner waited 4.5 hours for a pickup), customer service (an 11-year-old asked why bus drivers always seemed to be talking on cell phones, another asked why Metrorail operators often closed the doors on riders), and issues related to the system’s overall growth and maintenance. Officials stressed they were actively trying to change the culture of the organization to improve customer service, and performing needed upgrades and maintenance to the existing system.