Metro News Release

For immediate release: January 30, 2008

Metro General Manager looks to improve safety, reliability and for more funding during second year on the job

More eight-car trains, new buses and a new safety program are some of the improvements Metro’s new General Manager is proud to tout after his first year leading the capital region’s transit system.  
 
John Catoe arrived at Metro last January to become the fourth person to lead the transit agency within a 12-month period. Improving safety was top on his list after employee deaths, a derailment and pedestrian accidents involving buses.  
 
“The toughest issue was coming on board after the fatalities,” said Catoe. “That became the focus of the agency, improving safety. We took many steps. One was a retraining program for bus operators.”
 
The other, Catoe said, is an authority-wide safety improvement program that aims to cut the number of accidents and injuries in half within five years.
 
Catoe’s other main focus has been improving the reliability of the rail system. Debris fires and mechanical breakdowns caused more delays last year. Catoe ordered more cleaning, with employees picking up thousands of bags of trash and buying more track vacuums.
 
Metro also is testing a track bed screen that catches trash along the tracks. In 2007, There also were increased repairs of aging track bed equipment that was causing fires.
 
Metro also has been working with the manufacturer of the 5000 series rail cars to fix door problems, and mechanics are working on fixing brake problems in the more than 30-year-old 1000 series cars.
 
“Every time we have an issue with doors, I take each of those off-loads personally,” said Catoe. “Good customer service is a reliable system.”
 
The reliability of Metrobuses improved by 20 percent last year over the previous year. Catoe credited putting 417 new buses in service, which reduced the average age of buses from 10 to seven years. Another 100 buses are expected to arrive by next year. Catoe also wants to dedicate funds to change schedules and add extra buses and drivers to improve on-time performance and ease crowding. There are plans to expand limited-stop bus service in the District of Columbia and Maryland’s Prince George’s County to National Harbor.
 
Metro’s paratransit service, MetroAccess, also improved last year, and managers predict it will continue to get better with the move from a curb-to-curb to a door-to-door transportation service in the late spring.
 
Catoe said his top three priorities for 2008 will continue to be safety, reliability and funding for Metro’s long-term capital needs, which includes replacing old rail cars and buses and keeping the current rail system in a state of good repair.  Catoe plans to present the transit agency’s 10-year capital program, which begins in 2010 to the agency’s Board in the spring. He estimates it will total more than $3 billion.

“I will make every effort to seek capital funding from any source I can,” said Catoe, pointing out that Metro is the only major transit system in the country that does not have a dedicated source of funding.
 
Metro’s general manager believes investing in rail and bus service is important for the environment and to ease traffic congestion. He said the agency and local governments will explore pursuing more express bus routes and dedicated bus lanes this year in an effort to improve mobility in the region.

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News release issued at 2:04 pm, January 30, 2008.