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How to salvage WMATA? Rewrite the compact


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#1 CNJRoss

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Posted 20 November 2016 - 08:51 PM

The Washington Post, 11/18:

 

Opinion

Fixing Metro’s fundamental flaw

 

By Robert J. Flanagan and W. Edward Walter

 

Robert J. Flanagan is chairman of the Federal City Council. W. Edward Walter is vice chairman of the Federal City Council.

 

 

Metro is suffering.

 

Physically, Metro is suffering from years of deferred maintenance that has threatened its safety and reliability. Financially, Metro is suffering from an increasing budget deficit and decreasing ridership, which threaten its ongoing viability. Operationally, it is clear to all who come in contact with the system that it can and must be managed better. Most critical, organizationally Metro is suffering from an existential problem as old as Metro itself: The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Compact, which governs the operation of the Metro system, is fundamentally flawed.

 

It is hard to fix Metro when its member jurisdictions can veto productive changes or well-conceived management plans are not effectively executed in the field. It is hard to persuade stakeholders — passengers and jurisdictions alike — to continue to invest in Metro given concerns about runaway operating and capital costs, coupled with weak controls on spending and quality. Without making extreme changes, we will perpetuate the degradation of the system, its safety and its benefit to the region.

 

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#2 CNJRoss

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Posted 20 November 2016 - 08:54 PM

The Washington Post, 11/19:
 

How to salvage Metro? Rewrite the compact, says influential D.C. business group

 

Almost everybody agrees Metro’s governance structure and finances are broken. But almost nobody agrees about the best way to fix them.

 

Metro Chairman Jack Evans favors a federal board to take over Metro. Other top officials said that would be hoisting a white flag of surrender.

 

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) wants a regionwide sales tax to pay the bills. Maryland and Virginia say “wait” or “no way.”

 

Now the Federal City Council, an influential business and civic group led by former D.C. mayor Anthony A. Williams, has joined the debate with a plan to rally the region around a proposal to start all over again. The best way to fix the troubled transit agency is to blow it up, the council says.

 

In an opinion article (posted above) for Sunday’s Washington Post, the council urges a rewriting of the Metro compact, or founding document.  .  .  .

 

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#3 CNJRoss

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Posted 29 November 2016 - 09:04 AM

The Washington Post, 11/29:
 

There are four proposals to save Metro. Which might prevail?

Old divisions threaten multiple plans to rescue Metro, and only a common strategy might work.

 

 

There are no fewer than four distinct plans being floated to save Metro. Business leaders and elected officials urge a crusade to repair the transit system by restructuring its board, giving it reliable funding or handing it over to the federal government. They proclaim bravely that failure is not an option.

 

In fact, experience with similar restructuring efforts suggests that failure is the probable outcome. The same political and economic divisions that have stymied restructuring for the past 40 years persist today.

 

If the region is to finally fix Metro’s structural weaknesses, analysts say, then force must be exerted on the top elected officials in the District, Maryland and Virginia to get them to act.

 

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#4 CNJRoss

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Posted 06 January 2017 - 01:12 PM

LATE POST

 

WTOP radio, 12/2/16:
 

Calls to ‘blow up’ Metro management at fiery Capitol Hill hearing

 

WASHINGTON — Everyone loves General Manager Paul Wiedefeld. Everyone hates the Metro Board. And D.C. Council member and Metro Board Chair Jack Evans has many lawmakers fired up against him.

 

Those are among the take-aways from a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Friday.

 

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., went after Evans for “destructive” comments threatening line shutdowns and an effort to kill the Silver Line to Dulles and Loudoun County.

 

SNIP

 

“We need to blow up the compact,” Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., suggested, referring to the document that established Metro and governance policies.

 

SNIP

 

Comstock also questioned why a bus driver can make more than $100,000 or a rail controller — before changes were made — could make more than $200,000 per year. She also expressed concerns, as she held up a WTOP article from earlier this year, that the union was not focused on safety.

 

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#5 CNJRoss

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Posted 06 January 2017 - 01:15 PM

WTOP radio, 1/5/17:
 

Transit-union leader: Comstock’s Metro attack ‘racist

 

WASHINGTON — A national transit union leader called attacks on Metro workers’ pay and safety missteps by Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., “racist,” while Comstock’s office replied that the union’s “failed” leadership is missing the point.

 

“She is completely ignorant of the facts, and we want to call her out on that,” Amalgamated Transit Union President Larry Hanley, speaking of Comstock, told reporters Wednesday.

 

“I believe that there is a clear overtone to her attack on WMATA workers, and I frankly believe it’s racist.”

 

Comstock, who represents Virginia’s 10th District, has asked why some Metro bus drivers can make more than $100,000 in a year, or why rail controllers were able to make more than $200,000. At a congressional hearing last month, she also held up this WTOP report to illustrate concerns about whether the union local is as focused on building a long-promised safety culture at Metro as it claims to be.

 

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#6 CNJRoss

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Posted 15 January 2017 - 10:24 AM

The Washington Post, 1/15:
 

2 U.S. lawmakers want to fix Metro by rewriting its governing charter

 

Two local members of Congress are preparing legislation to reshape Metro’s governing structure by forcing the District, Virginia and Maryland to rewrite the transit agency’s 50-year-old compact.

 

The separate initiatives by Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) and John Delaney (D-Md.) reflect a growing sentiment in the Washington region that Metro’s problems can be fixed only with fundamental reforms in how the three jurisdictions oversee, manage and fund the agency.

 

Proposed changes could include banning elected officials from the Metro board, weakening union protections, strengthening oversight and providing reliable funding.

 

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#7 CNJRoss

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Posted 17 February 2017 - 08:38 AM

WTOP radio, 2/16:
 

Bill would allow only experts on Metro Board, limit labor deals

 

 

WASHINGTON — The federal government would pull the rug out from Metro’s governance structure without significant reforms to the Metro Board, under a bill filed Thursday by Rep. John Delaney.

 

The Maryland Democrat’s bill would require that all members of the Metro Board be experts in transit, safety, management or finance; that the board member’s first fiduciary duty be to Metro; and that the Metro Compact that outlines how the system is managed be changed to add the transit agency’s “CEO” to the existing eight-member board.

 

The bill would also require a certification that any changes to Metro’s collective bargaining agreements allow the agency to improve safety and service and to lower costs while still meeting federal wage requirements.

 

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#8 CNJRoss

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Posted 17 February 2017 - 08:39 AM

The Washington Post, 2/16:
 

Democrat’s fix for Metro: $750 million from feds in exchange for governance, labor changes

 

 

Metro would receive an extra $750 million in federal funds over 10 years in exchange for changes in the transit system’s governance structure and labor contracts under a bill proposed Thursday by a Maryland congressman.

 

The legislation put forward by Rep. John Delaney (D) is the first of two bills that representatives from the region plan to submit in a bid to force the District, Maryland and Virginia to rewrite Metro’s compact, the document that outlines how the agency is governed and funded.

 

Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) is drafting the other bill.

 

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#9 CNJRoss

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Posted 25 April 2017 - 09:01 AM

The Washington Post, 4/24/17:
 

Transit union calls bill to reform Metro ‘heartless’ and ‘cruel’

 

 

Metro’s largest union denounced a Maryland congressman’s proposed legislation to overhaul the agency’s governance and labor practices Monday, saying it is “among the most outrageous proposals ever put forth by a Democratic member of Congress in recent memory.”

 

Amalgamated Transit Union International, issued a scathing letter Monday to Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), who in February introduced the Improvement Act of 2017. The bill would award Metro $750 million over 10 years in exchange for broad reforms to the agency’s labor and governance, and includes a provision that would give Metro management greater power to reassign workers or rely on outside contractors.

 

In the letter, ATU International President Lawrence J. Hanley says, “The bill holds hostage hundreds of millions of sorely-needed dollars from WMATA until our collective bargaining agreement is changed to allow the transit authority to ‘implement all necessary operational changes required’ and lower costs by outsourcing our work.”

 

In statement Monday, Delaney defended his bill as striking a balance between labor protections and addressing the system’s long-term needs.

 

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