Metro News Release

For immediate release: January 12, 2006

Metro to spend security money on cameras, control center and upgrades

Metro plans to install more cameras on buses, provide additional security training for drivers, build a new control center to run trains and buses and upgrade its underground radio system, with funding received by the Department of Homeland Security.

Metro will fund the projects using the $12.2 million in Homeland Security grants it received last fall. An alternate operations control center has been the transit authority’s top security priority. The control center, now located at Metro’s downtown D.C. headquarters, is the nerve center of the bus and rail system. Metro managers said they weighed cost and security factors before deciding to move the primary center to a facility in Landover, Md., and use the current center as a backup.

The outstanding cost for completing the alternate operations center is $22 million. Metro will use about $7 million from the latest grant for the control center, still leaving a $15 million funding need. Transit authority officials hope to use 2006 DHS grants to complete the project. Metro had set aside $6.5 million from previous Homeland Security grants primarily for the alternate control center.

Just under $1 million of the 2005 grant will be used to install security cameras on 100 Metrobuses and at the 14th Street Bridge. By the end of June, more than 600 buses or just under half of the fleet will have security cameras.

News release issued on January 12, 2006.