Photo by Liliang
Amid a growing heap of issues on Metrorail and the creation of a plan to fix them, local leaders are a step closer to forming a group that will oversee the safety of the Washington Metro Transit Authority. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced today that the first draft of legislation to create the Metrorail Safety Commission is ready for review.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has been pressuring the region to move more quickly to found the new agency, threatening to withhold millions of dollars of federal transportation funding. Seems like it worked.
According to the draft document, the commission will be financially and legally independent of WMATA. It’ll have six board members—two from each jurisdiction. And among other oversight powers, the members will create a safety program, approve plans created by WMATA, and conduct periodic audits of the system.
Mayor Muriel Bowser thanked her counterparts for the partnership in a release. “This was an idea born out of collaboration and coordination between DC, Maryland and Virginia. Once again, the DMV has shown that when we come together as a region, we get things done,” Bowser said.
Earlier this month, the FTA handed down maintenance tasks to WMATA, pointing out three segments of Metrorail that need immediate work. Things were bad enough at one point that Foxx said he “seriously” considered shutting the system down.
While crews having been working to fix the segments addressed in the FTA’s most recent letter as well as another one that the agency sent the month before, WMATA is gearing up for its year-long SafeTrack plan that’s set to launch next week.
Before the Metrorail Safety Commission legislation goes further, several people will review it. Among them are local city and state government leaders, the WMATA Board of Directors, and the Federal Transit Administration’s Kathryn Thomson, who was appointed earlier this week to oversee Metro’s safety issues on a federal level.
The legislation will be introduced later this year to the D.C. Council. Maryland and Virginia lawmakers introduce it in 2017.
