Metro News Release

For immediate release: January 27, 2011

Metro Board Chairman Peter Benjamin delivers outgoing remarks

Chair focuses on perspective of past year

Metro Board member Peter Benjamin delivered the following remarks on his last day as Chairman of the Metro Board of Directors, today, Thursday, January 27, 2011. Benjamin continues to serve as a Metro Board member.

Remarks by Peter Benjamin

This has been a year of change for WMATA. The tragic rail accident of June 22, 2009, which took the lives of one rail operator and eight passengers, as well as injuring scores of passengers, was a turning point. Over the next months we also lost four other rail employees in accidents on the system. All of us at Metro mourn the loss of lives; the injuries suffered; the families which have to cope without loved ones or with the aftermath of injuries. But something else happened with these events: we lost our innocence. We had been like adolescents; we felt we were invulnerable. Our system was perfect. We could no longer believe that. We all had to make a clear and unambiguous commitment to safety as our number one priority, from every member of the Board to every bus and rail operator, station manager, and maintenance employee. We have done that, and we are working to change our organization and culture into one in which safety is the way we live.

The National Transportation Safety Board completed an extensive, thorough and complex investigation of that terrible accident, and issued 16 recommendations designed to minimize the possibility of a recurrence of the event. We have committed to implementing all of the NTSB recommendations, dedicating $1 billion in capital funds for that purpose, reorganizing our safety functions within WMATA, and reinforcing whistleblower protections. Within a month of receiving the report we had completed one NTSB recommendation: strengthening the Board commitment to safety, adopting a new mission statement which emphasizes safety, and creating a Board safety committee.

We also faced leadership challenges as our General Manager resigned in the beginning of 2010. We were fortunate to be able to attract Richard Sarles as our extremely capable interim General Manager. He took up the challenges we face as a system with an aging infrastructure with skill and insight, and we are very pleased that today we were able to appoint him as our permanent General Manager/Chief Executive Officer. He is a man of talent and dedication who will serve the Authority and the Washington region well over the coming three years.

For the first time since the founding of WMATA, this year we added four Board positions to our governance structure, with the first two Federal appointees joining us in early 2010. These excellent new members have enriched the Board and have added to the quality of our decisions. As we administered the oath of office today to four new Board members we began historic changes in the Board membership, and we look forward to the different ideas and perspectives that our new colleagues will bring.

Several organizations are suggesting changes in Metro’s governance to further enhance our policy making capability. We shall explore those proposals carefully and thoughtfully because we want to do everything we can to enhance our organization and its ability to serve the public.

For the third budget year in a row, we face financial challenges, as the local jurisdictions deal with the loss of tax revenues due to a stagnant economy and are unable to increase their subsidy contributions to Metro as much as we all would desire. The economic decline has impacted ridership on bus and rail, constraining revenue growth and adding to the budget pressures. At the same time our aging infrastructure requires substantial investments in rehabilitation and replacement. As we begin that process, we face the reduced reliability associated with older equipment and inconveniences to riders as we replace or repair equipment and right of way.

Despite the financial challenges we are making progress. While many other transit systems throughout the country were forced to reduce service, we were able to avoid service cuts, and are carrying 1.3 million passenger trips each day. We have ordered new rail cars to replace the oldest ones in the fleet. Many of our buses are new, reducing delays due to breakdowns. We are focusing on escalator and right of way maintenance to enhance passenger movement and safety. A rail extension to Dulles Airport is under construction, managed by the Airports Authority. We are introducing more convenient ways for our passengers to pay fares. But most important, we are focusing on safety and service to our customers, because we realize that our job is not to run buses and trains; it is to move people. We operate safe, reliable and effective transit service in our region in order to provide mobility for the region’s residents and for visitors to the nation’s capital from across the country and around the world. We are the premier transit system in the United States.

News release issued at 3:23 pm, January 27, 2011.