Metro News Release

For immediate release: January 25, 2007

Gladys Mack's outgoing remarks as Metro Board Chairman

It has been a privilege and an honor to serve as Chair of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board of Directors for the past year.

2006 was an important year here at Metro. It was a year of transition and difficult challenges, but it was also a year of promises kept.

During 2006, Metro had its first change in leadership for nearly 10 years, and, today, we enthusiastically welcomed John Catoe as our new leader. The Board is confident that he is the person with the vision, the knowledge, experience and the energy that we need to lead us at this time.

For most of last year, we were fortunate to have the leadership of Dan Tangherlini who brought fresh ideas, increased customer service and employee engagement to the job. When Dan left to become City Administrator for our new District Mayor Adrian Fenty, Jack Requa, our COO of Bus Operations, stepped up without hesitation and has ably led us for the last three months. Thank you, Jack for keeping Metro on track. I know that John Catoe will be able to rely on the experience and leadership of Jack and Dan to help him hit the ground running.

This past year has brought other challenges for Metro. The death of three track workers, Jong Lee, Leslie A. Cherry and Mathew Brooks, served as a stark reminder of the tremendous responsibility we share to keep our system safe. To prevent these types of tragedies in the future, we acted quickly to establish new, stricter measures to protect employees working on our tracks.

We also experienced a derailment of a revenue service train earlier this month, where fortunately no one was seriously injured, but it was a call to action. We are working expeditiously, in cooperation with the NTSB, to identify any potential causes and to prevent such incidents in the future. Despite these problems, our message to riders is that our system is safe. Metro has had, over the years, one of the best safety records in the industry and we are fully committed to doing whatever is necessary to keep that standard high.


Despite the difficulties and challenges we faced in 2006, we had an extraordinary year of achievement for Metro.

Our challenges and achievements for 2006 came together in kicking off the first year for our Riders Advisory Council (RAC). The RAC began its work at about the same time that we faced significant customer concern with our new contractor for MetroAccess. Under the leadership of Dennis Jaffee, our first RAC Chairman, and Board Member Dana Kauffman, we were able to work together to provide an opportunity for open and candid dialogue for our riders, and to put together a joint committee, including COG representation, to bring real solutions to the concerns expressed by the riders. I want to thank Dana for his commitment. Throughout the year, the RAC proved to be an important new dimension for Metro in our efforts to come closer to our customers, from co-sponsorship of our Town Hall Meetings, to the many other RAC activities. I want to thank Dennis for a successful first year for the RAC.

As a result of their efforts and the work of Board and staff and customers, we made significant investments in MetroAccess. We recently approved the expenditure of more than $6 million for improvements to the MetroAccess fleet, including door-to-door service, greater scheduling flexibility, and a higher level of customer support. After a bumpy start to ’06, I am confident that Metro Access is on its way to gaining greater confidence from our customers.

Upon assuming the Chair of the Metro Board, I promised that 2006 would be the “Year of the Bus”, and I am pleased to report that we kept our promise. It was a banner year for bus services here at Metro. Among our many accomplishments, we placed 417 new buses into service, which reduced the average age of our fleet to less than 7 years old, the first time in our history.

• Additionally, we hit a new milestone in accessibility for our system by making all of our buses 100% handicapped accessible.
• We made changes to almost 100 routes across the region to improve service reliability.
• We also hosted an enormously important regional bus conference. Thanks to Gordon Linton and staff for a successful first step.
• We began testing of real-time information for our NextBus program.
• We won a federal grant to study the use of new, clean fuel cell technology.
• We implemented an improved preventive maintenance program, increased diagnostic training for mechanics, and increased the use of technology on newer buses that inform operators and mechanics of potential problems before they develop.

As a direct result of our work, Metrobus riders have seen tangible improvements in service. For example, in 2006, Metrobus saw a 32 percent decrease in number of lost bus trips per 1,000 trips. There was a reduction of 36 percent in the “mean distance between failures,” and through the first six months of fiscal year 2007, the breakdown rate for Metrobus was improved by 37 percent over the first six months of fiscal year 2006. All of these investments in Metrobus are enabling us to provide a safer, cleaner and more reliable service for our Metrobus passengers, and they deserve nothing less.

On the rail side, we introduced regular eight-car train service this year and began rolling out our 6,000 series rail cars. Further, we eliminated the Red Line turn backs at Grosvenor station and extended the Yellow Line to Fort Totten during the off-peak period. These relatively low cost efforts have been warmly welcomed by our riders.

We undertook two specific tasks as a Board that I leave to be completed by our incoming Chair Mr. Charlie Deegen. They are the hiring of an Inspector General, which was delayed by the action to hire a General Manager, and a look at our governance structure. We made significant progress toward both; however, these decisions were too serious to be hurried and I am sure they will have a high priority as the Board undertakes its new term.

As we look to the future there are many challenges facing our organization. First and foremost, is reestablishing any confidence that our customers may have lost. We must assure that we are good stewards of the public finances, holding the line on expenditure increases, while continuing to provide first-class transit service to our customers at a reasonable price.

Further, we must continue our regional pursuit of real and meaningful dedicated funding. We were close, with the leadership of our local leaders in Congress, to moving this issue to a final vote in 2006. I am confident that we will finally succeed in securing a new partnership with the federal government to support the long-term health of Metro in the years ahead.

Finally, I want to take just a moment to express my gratitude to everyone who helped to make my tenure as Board Chair and as a member of the Board a successful and rewarding experience. As many of you know, I will be ending my tenure as a Board member here at Metro as soon as my replacement has been approved by the DC Council. It has been a distinct honor to represent the District of Columbia on this Board for 23 years. I have been a part of many important decisions for the District of Columbia and for the region, and I will remain keenly interested in Metro’s future, particularly as it relates to our bus service.

I want to sincerely thank our riders, my fellow Board members, Metro staff, our jurisdictional partners, members of the JCC and members of the RAC, our local elected leaders and everyone else who contribute daily to make this a great system.

Thank you.

News release issued at 12:00 am, January 25, 2007.