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A SAFE TRACK?: OVERSIGHT OF WMATA’S 

SAFETY AND MAINTENANCE 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS 

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC ASSETS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 2, 2016 

Serial No. 114–173 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK, MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Massachusetts 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

ANDREW DOCKHAM, General Counsel 

PATRICK HARTOBEY, Counsel 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 


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(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina, Chairman 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan, Vice Chair 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION & PUBLIC ASSETS

JOHN L. MICA Florida, Chairman 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. Tennessee 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Vice Chair 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois, Ranking 

Member 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on December 2, 2016 ........................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Christopher A. Hart, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 13 

Mr. Matthew Welbes, Executive Director, Federal Transit Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 24 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 26 

Mr. Paul Wiedefeld, General Manager, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit 

Authority 

Mr. Jack Evans, Chairman of the Board, Washington Metropolitan Area 

Transit Authority 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 33 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 36 

Mr. Raymond Jackson, Second Vice President, Amalgamated Transit Union, 

Local 689 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41 

APPENDIX 

Congressman Steny H. Hoyer Statement .............................................................. 74 

Senator Chris Van Hollen Statement .................................................................... 75 

Response from Mr. Wiedefeld-WMATA to Questions for the Record .................. 77 

Response from Mr. Jeter-Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 to Questions 

for the Record ....................................................................................................... 95 


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A SAFE TRACK?: OVERSIGHT OF WMATA’S 

SAFETY AND MAINTENANCE 

Friday, December 2, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, JOINT

WITH SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC

ASSETS, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica [chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets] 

presiding. 

Present: Representatives Mica, Meadows, Grothman, Jordan, 

Buck, Carter, Chaffetz, Connolly, Watson Coleman, Maloney, and 

DeSaulnier. 

Also present: Representatives Comstock, Delaney, and Beyer. 

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I’d like to call this joint hearing of the 

Subcommittees on Transportation and Public Assets and Government Operations to order. Two of our subcommittees of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are holding a joint 

hearing today. And the title of this hearing is ‘‘A SafeTrack’’—that 

deals, of course, with Washington Metro—an ‘‘Oversight of 

WMATA Safety and Maintenance Issues.’’ 

I’m pleased to convene the hearing this morning. And the order 

of business is we’ll start with opening statements from members, 

and then we’ll go to our panel of witnesses. And after we’ve heard 

from all of them, we’ll go into questioning. 

With that, we’ll begin the hearing. And let me recognize first 

Chairman Chaffetz, the chairman of the full committee. 

Mr. Chaffetz, you’re recognized. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank you, Chairman. And I want to just take 

a point of personal privilege here. This is the last hearing that Mr. 

Mica will chair in the United States Congress. Mr. Mica has served 

with great distinction for 24 years in this body. He has served as 

the chairman of the Transportation Infrastructure Committee. He’s 

poured his heart and soul into this Nation and to this body over 

more than two decades. And so we want to say thank you, we want 

to say thank you, and we want to say thank you for the tremendous service that you have dedicated over the years. And you’ve 

been a great inspiration to a lot of us. And it’s an honor and a 

privilege to serve with you. We wish you and your wife nothing but 

the best. But it is an honor to be with you this last hearing that 


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you’re going to chair. And we wish you nothing but the best. But 

God bless you. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you very much. Yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Speaking for the Democratic side of the aisle, I 

also want to wish you Godspeed and thank you for your service. We 

have a reputation for not always being able to collaborate on a bipartisan basis up here, but when you and I served together, you 

as chairman of the subcommittee and me as the ranking member, 

actually we made a lot of common music. And I think you did an 

awful lot of good both here and, of course, on the Transportation 

Committee as well. I’m going to miss you personally, John. And on 

behalf of the Democratic side of the aisle, thank you for your service to your country. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you, Gerry. And thank you, Chairman 

Chaffetz. All the members of the committee, it’s been a pleasure, 

Mr. Meadows, Mr. Jordan, and others that I’ve had the opportunity 

to serve with. A few minutes ago, we got to thank some of the staff 

for their work this year. And you can’t operate an important committee like this without having a tremendous staff, which on both 

sides of the aisle we’ve been blessed. 

So while there may be some cheering from the bureaucrats that 

Mica’s finally gone, I can assure you I still will be very actively engaged and involved. But there’s no better committee to serve on. 

Now, I have chaired Transportation, but this committee, dating 

back to 1808, performs such an important service for the American 

people. It really does. It’s not an authorizer, it’s not an appropriator, but it tries to make things right, get things right, and hold 

people accountable. And that’s so important in our structure of government. 

So it’s been my pleasure to serve. And I’m not finished yet, either 

with this hearing or in service to the people of this great country. 

So I thank you for those accolades. I wish I’d had more of them 

during my service. But—and my weird sense of humor or sick 

sense of humor, the humor my wife says most people don’t understand that I have, is an inherited thing. So I try to—you try to 

keep a light side of it along the way, but we do have an important 

mission. 

With that being said, we need to get to our work here. And this 

is important work. And without objection, the chair is authorized 

to declare a recess at any time. Kind of fitting in the last hearing 

here, it’s on transportation. And I was honored to have this subcommittee which is responsible for transportation oversight for the 

House of Representatives under my watch for the past term. 

And, unfortunately, today we’re back to where we’ve been before, 

and we have been some four times. This is our fourth hearing on 

oversight of, unfortunately, some of the problems with the D.C. 

Metro in this Congress. And those hearings go back to February of 

2015. And then we did another one in July of 2015, and April of 

2016. And, again, this is our fourth. 

If you woke up this morning in metropolitan area of the District 

of Columbia, Northern Virginia, and Maryland, first thing I was 


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greeted with is my colleague Gerry Connolly on the radio blasting 

what we all found out on the report that was released yesterday, 

some of the highlights of the NTSB report—we’ll hear more about 

that—on the Falls Church derailment. And what is particularly 

troubling in that report is that, unfortunately, some of the information about the deterioration of the rail ties and lines in the area 

was reported and known for more than a year. And there are questions about possible falsification of reports, intimidation of employees. Some folks were trying to do the right thing and were—the 

safety issues were ignored. And that’s a very, very serious matter. 

So we’ll talk more about that. 

Again, it’s the latest in a whole series of safety issues that we 

have addressed in these past hearings. And, again, the latest report, not from us but from NTSB highlights that almost 17,000 

open track defects are still waiting to be repaired. And some of 

these dating back to 2008. 

In a briefing in its—on its investigation, the NTSB informed our 

committee that the state of Metro’s rails is deplorable. Metro’s current state of disrepair is—and that’s their term, not ours, but we 

can join them in that evaluation. Metro’s current state of disrepair 

is the result of years and years of deferring maintenance needs, 

negligence in some cases. Unfortunately, we’ve seen cases of gross 

mismanagement. And then also most troubling for the taxpayers, 

is runaway costs. 

Mr. Wiedefeld’s first—safety first message has been encouraging. 

And we know he’s been on the job a short period of time, but Metro 

has to continue to improve its performance. 

We are now halfway through the SafeTrack rebuilding schedule, 

but the system continues to be plagued by safety incidents on almost a weekly basis. On July 5, we had a second signal violation 

and a wreck. On July 29, a train with 63 passengers on board derailed. On September 13, a crowded train stalled at Farragut North 

for nearly 40 minutes with almost no announcements from the operators to the riders. On October 20, two FTA safety inspectors 

were almost struck by a train that violated speed restrictions. And 

we continue to see arcing incidents—and I want to hear more about 

the status of where we are there—that have caused smoke, fire, 

and, unfortunately, at one of the first junctures we had a loss of 

life. 

It’s been, unfortunately, now commonplace that things are so bad 

they’ve even created a Web site—and that Web site is 

metroonfire.com—to find out if Metro is, in fact, suffering from 

smoke or fire incidents at any particular time. 

These incidents and service disruptions continue to keep riders 

and the entire system in constant turmoil. Early in January 2015, 

the previous chairman of the Metro’s board praised the outgoing 

manager for rebuilding the safety culture from top to bottom after 

years of rebuilding under the $5 billion Metro Forward capital 

plan, that was his pronouncement. Four days later, unfortunately, 

the L’Enfant Plaza incident happened, which we had a loss of life 

and injured 91 people. 

We need to know both today here from these witnesses and also 

in the future, we’ve got to be certain that things are heading in a 

different direction with this important system. 


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When you see headlines that show the staggering safety lapses 

on a regular basis—and I said to the staff: Just pull me some of 

the clips about some of these issues, the most recent. And then I 

said: Are there a lot of them? And I said: Well, tag them. You can 

see just page after page. Now, these are just Washington Post articles. I don’t know why you guys didn’t get the Times too, but this 

is just the Washington Post. 

Do you get the Times, Gerry? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I don’t. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. I didn’t think so. 

But this is, again, an incredible array of headlines and articles 

that cite that the system is broken. We’ve had reports even that 

new, brand-new, rail cars are breaking down. And I heard one report that says this is 5 to 10,000 miles is a breakdown record of 

the new cars, an average of about 7,000 miles on a car, as opposed 

to 20,000 for the normal period in which a vehicle should not experience those problems. So we do have multiple problems. 

I was stopped by an individual when I was getting a subway the 

other day, and he had some photos. And, actually, there’s a photo 

and a video. But maybe they could put up the photo that he took 

of the workers. 

Can we get that put up? 

Okay. Well, you can count about 15 workers and about—well, 15 

individuals employed by WMATA and about three people working 

in this scene. Actually, he also supplied me, we don’t have it up 

there, a video showing a sort of time lapse that people are there 

but not working. And that raises a great question when the public 

is seeing this kind of operation with lots of people standing around 

and we’ve got some serious issues with even the folks that are 

there. 

And I thank the current director for going in, and he has made 

good in some of his challenges. In fact, I think he’s eliminated 20 

senior manager positions and reduced some of the headcount by 

1,000. But you could see there’s still a long way to go with some 

of the people who are not performing. And I’m going to ask some 

questions too about contracting some of this work based on performance and payment. I understand the—also that the union contract is not up for some of these workers still in limbo. We’ll hear 

on that. But there’s got to be a better way to get better results and 

performance from those on the job. 

I do want to thank, again, the new director for the reforms that 

he’s initiated. Maybe we could re-term this hearing, Let’s make 

Washington Metro great again. And that’s something that we have 

a challenge and opportunity to do. We put an incredible amount of 

money into the system. 

I googled last night the history of the system. And it’s been 

around for 40 years. Started with 4.7 miles. And it really is one of 

the—it was created as one of the finest rapid transit systems in the 

world. And we should be very proud of this system. It serves the 

Nation’s capital and this region. And it’s a shame that we find ourself in this particular situation. 

So I continue to work in an unofficial capacity to make certain 

that happens. And hopefully this hearing will help us rebuild 

Metro and restore public confidence in an important transportation 


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system, the second largest carrier of commuters in the Nation, and 

important in the everyday life of people in this region and to the 

United States of America. 

So I look forward to working with you all. And I can turn to Mr. 

Connolly. And I’m sure Mr. Connolly will be very warm and fuzzy 

this morning. 

You’re recognized. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin, I’d ask 

unanimous consent that my colleagues, Mr. Beyer, Mr. Delaney, 

and Mrs. Comstock, be allowed to participate in this hearing. 

Mr. MICA. Reserving the right to object. 

Just kidding, Gerry. Just kidding. 

Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And if the clock can go back to 5, please, for me. 

That was a UC request. Thank you. 

I appreciate this opportunity once again to discuss safety, service, and budget challenges faced by the Nation’s transit system, 

WMATA. Each time this committee revisits this topic and exercises 

its Federal oversight prerogative with regard to Metro, we’re reminded of the close relationship between the functionality of the 

Federal Government itself and the health of the Nation’s capital 

transit system. It should come as no surprise that a congressional 

committee tasked with ensuring the efficiency of the Federal Government and the safety of its workforce has a vested interest in the 

success of that transit system that delivers more than one-third of 

the area’s Federal workforce every day. 

In March, when Metro announced that it would shut down for 24 

hours to conduct emergency inspections, the first question on everyone’s mind was how would the Federal Government’s Office of 

Personnel Management accommodate that closure. Unlike any 

other transit system in the United States, this one is so dependent 

on the Federal workforce for its customer base. The Federal Government is the primary stakeholder in this transit system. And I 

look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that Federal 

support for Metro is commensurate to its fundamental reliance on 

the system. As Federal stakeholders, I think our organizing principle should be the failure of Metro cannot be an option. 

When this committee held a hearing on Metro in April, the system was in crisis. All lights were blinking red. The hearing and 

witness testimony enumerated the system’s mounting crises in 

leadership, safety, customer confidence, and finance. It was clear 

that the situation required bold and immediate action and that the 

status quo for Metro was derailed to perdition. 

The purpose of the hearing today is to examine whether Metro 

has stepped back from the precipice and whether and how the system can set a trajectory for safe, reliable, and sustainable operations. 

Unfortunately, the leadership crisis at Metro has evolved rather 

than diminished. After going 10 months without a general manager, the Metro finally has somebody at the helm, and general 

manager Paul Wiedefeld has demonstrated that he understands 

that the problems plaguing Metro are systemic. One does not have 

to agree with every major decision he’s made to appreciate the fact 

that thank God he’s willing to make them. 


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He came to the position with desperately needed relevant experience, even though the board fought about what really was required 

and preferred a green eyeshade accountant to somebody with experience in operations. We were fortunate we didn’t go down that 

road. 

The enduring leadership crisis at Metro resides in the WMATA 

board of directors. Some board members seem bent on proving that 

the governing body is wholly incapable of resuscitating, much less 

managing, Metro. Threats to scrap a major expansion of Metro to 

Dulles International Airport pit jurisdiction against jurisdiction 

and fractured the true regionalism necessary for Metro’s success. 

And I assure you, Mr. Evans, it will have repercussions up here 

among your allies and your partners. It’s destructive and not welcome. 

I’ve spent the last 21 years of my life working on Metro-related 

issues, first as a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and then as chairman of Fairfax County for 5 years. I made 

appointments to the Metro board. I rezoned property around Metro 

stations to maximize their potential. I approved the local operating 

subsidy every year without question and helped create the local tax 

districts to fund construction of the new Silver Line with the full 

approval of Metro and Metro’s board. 

In Congress, I’ve worked diligently with my colleagues to save the $150 million annual Federal commitment for safety improvements, which is matched by the Virginia localities and Maryland 

and D.C., and helped secure financing for the Silver Line working 

with then-Secretary Ray LaHood to both reduce costs and to secure 

funding for that Silver Line. So it’s personally painful to witness 

members of the WMATA board so mismanage an institution this 

region has invested in and fall back on the very parochialism some 

condemned. 

From a congressional perspective, threats to cancel major Federal investments, Federal investments, rampant parochialism, and 

political theater on that board destabilize efforts to secure and increase an appropriate level of Federal support up here. It’s not like 

we have that many friends. And to fracture the support we’ve got 

jeopardizes everything you need in Capitol Hill. 

General manager Wiedefeld deserves credit for taking the initiative within 6 months of becoming general manager to begin a 

sweeping program that will seek to carry out 3 years’ worth of 

maintenance in 1 year. Leading up to the announcement of 

SafeTrack in May, fires, major track defects, and arcing incidents, 

including one that claimed the life of Carol Glover, had exposed 

dire maintenance situation in Metro. 

While SafeTrack gives us something tangible to point to when assessing efforts to improve Metro safety, the safety problems at 

Metro go far beyond the replacement of high voltage cables and defective third rail insulators. I welcome the SafeTrack metrics from 

Metro that include the replacement of 26,000 cross ties and 10,000 

fasteners since the beginning of the maintenance blitz. 

However, this week, the National Transportation Safety Board 

released a report on the East Falls Church derailment in July. And 

it found, once again, that Metro track inspectors were not conducting inspections in accordance with written policy and respondVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:59 Jul 21, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26176.TXT APRIL

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ing to defects in realtime. Indeed, the NTSB found clear evidence 

that Metro safety inspectors deliberately falsified reports, endangering public safety once again. 

In the report, NTSB reiterated its recommendation to the Department of Transportation, the Federal Department of Transportation, that FRA, not FTA, ought to have safety responsibility and 

oversight for Metro. The report stated, and I quote, ‘‘The FTA oversight model lacks minimum safety standards, expertise, and the resources to provide assurance that corrective action plans are completed,’’ unquote. I’ve repeatedly shared my concern that the FTA 

does not have the tools necessary to provide robust oversight of 

Metro. And I think the derailment in East Falls Church is a case 

in point. 

The customer confidence picture continues to worsen. Ridership 

is already down 13 percent in this fiscal year. SafeTrack has been 

disruptive to commuters, and pending proposals for increased fares 

and diminished service could only hasten the vicious downward spiral. I might add, loose talk about closing large sections of the system continue to contribute to the loss of consumer confidence and 

ridership confidence. Will it be there in the future? Apparently not. 

As the general manager noted in his fiscal year 2018 proposed 

operating budget, the primary cause of Metro’s current budget 

challenge, a $290 million budget gap, is declining rail ridership, 

which has been on this downward trajectory since 2009. Fortunately, there’s an effort from management to assert the primacy of 

safety in Metro culture and improve reliability that could go a long 

way to restoring faith in the system. 

Going forward, staff reduction, service cuts, and fare increases 

are not going to bring about long-term stability. Metro is the only 

major transit system without a dedicated source of funding, and 

the system relies upon a patchwork of subsidies from local jurisdictions. Metro receives 47 percent of it’s operating budget from local 

and State subsidies, but not a Federal subsidy, and zero percent 

from a dedicated source of revenue. Zero percent. 

In my hometown of Boston, our transit system sees those figures 

in reverse, with zero percent coming from local subsidies and 64 

percent coming from a dedicated source of revenue. In my role as 

chairman of Fairfax in 2004, I helped launch the Blue Ribbon 

Panel on Metro that ultimately recommended a regional sales tax 

and called on the Federal Government to participate significantly 

in addressing the projected shortfall for capital maintenance and 

system enhancement. 

There’s clearly an appetite for Metro to meet certain safety and 

reliability metrics before new funding commitments are made. 

However, lamentations about performance will not solve Metro’s 

problems if we continue to ignore the dysfunctionality of the Metro 

board, the culture of indifference that pervades the workforce, and 

the absence of stable revenue any transit system needs to operate. 

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. And thank 

you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Chairman Mica. And before I begin, 

Mr. Mica, I want to just recognize not only the outstanding service 


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that you have provided the great folks of Florida and the United 

States as a whole, but a personal friendship to me. As a new guy 

coming in that had no idea what went on behind the scenes or 

what went on out there, you took a young guy from North Carolina 

and actually invested in me in a way that, quite frankly, I’ll never 

forget. You and Pat are dear friends. 

It’s been a difficult year. I want to let you know that I sincerely 

appreciate your friendship, your leadership, your investment, your 

love, and your compassion for the people that you serve. If they 

knew what I knew, that every day that you were worried about 

serving them more than serving yourself, I think that they would 

rise up with a statue. And I just want to say that I have a personal 

statue in my heart of a man that I appreciate so much. And you 

know in my district we’re the only district in the United States 

with a place called Micaville. And so every time I go by, I will remember it. So let me—— 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me go and turn to the business of today. And 

let’s get serious. I could tell you when I have my good friend Gerry 

Connolly as upset as he is today, I take notice. We talked about 

this yesterday. We’ve talked about it multiple times. But what we 

have here is a systemic failure to address real problems that actually not only affect ridership and the financial stability, but the 

safety aspect of our inaction is causing great peril, loss of life. And, 

quite frankly, it can’t be tolerated anymore. This is our fourth 

hearing. I’m tired of hearings. I’m tired of excuses. I’m tired of us 

going back and forth to look at these issues and say: Well, if you 

just give us a little bit more time, we’ll get it fixed. WMATA is not 

a fine wine. It does not improve with time. What we must do is we 

must act today. 

The gentlewoman from Virginia, Mrs. Comstock, she has called 

me a number of times saying that we have got to address this particular issue over and over and over again. And yet here we are 

with SafeTrack and learning that indeed as we start to embark on 

it—— 

And, Mr. Wiedefeld, I want to say thank you. You’re making 

tough choices. You know, I can tell you it is not good for your career. Because every time that you make a tough choice, you have 

a critic that is out there that is wanting to suggest that you 

shouldn’t be making that choice. But, quite frankly, we needed 

your kind of leadership years ago. This is a systemic problem that 

has to be addressed and it has to be addressed now. 

Now, it will require difficult decisions. And as my good friend Mr. 

Connolly just pointed out, some of the decisions that are being contemplated by the board, Mr. Evans, are troubling. You and I know 

that we’ve had some personal meetings. And I’m willing to invest 

the political capital in a way that does not play well back in North 

Carolina. But I’m willing to do that to fix this system once and for 

all. But what I’m not willing to do is to ignore what has become 

a reoccurring theme. 

Every time we get a new report, every time that we start to see 

something, we start to find out things that we should have known 

months and years ago. You know, to hear the report of falsified 

records is just mind blowing. It’s just—you know, when you know 


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that we’re going to have this kind of detail to look at it, it’s mind 

blowing. And the death and injury of individuals fall at the responsibility of some of those very people who look the other way when 

we have issues that we have to address. And so we’re going to fix 

this. We’re going to fix this right away. And what we are going to 

make sure of, as we look at the track record, is that we make hard 

decisions. 

And so, Mr. Jackson, I’m looking forward to hearing from you 

today. What are the hard decisions that you’re willing to make as 

well? Because what we have here is is we’ve got everybody pointing 

fingers at everybody else. They’re saying: Well, it was not my job. 

Well, it’s not my responsibility. Or if we just had a little bit more 

money, we could fix it. Let me just tell you. We do have a money 

problem, but this is not—the genesis of this problem is not money. 

The genesis of this problem is a culture that we have allowed to 

pervade and exist for a long time. 

WMATA has become the butt of jokes. But let me tell you, it’s 

not a joking matter. When you have people stuck on a track and 

they can’t get ahold of an operator for 30 minutes, and then you 

start to unload them on to and get off on a track where you have 

an active possibility for electrocution, I mean, that’s a real problem. 

And, Mr. Wiedefeld, you and I have talked on a couple of occasions, and some of the other safety concerns that are out there, we 

need a little bit more transparency so I don’t get surprised by reading about something in the Washington Post. And by doing that I 

understand that you’re trying to evaluate. But the other part of 

that is from an oversight standpoint, if we’re going to make investments for Federal dollars, we have got to make sure that there is 

a good plan in place to address these. 

And so today, I’m looking forward to hearing from each one of 

you on how we can address that. Chairman Hart, you’re here back 

to hopefully give us some marching orders. But it’s not good 

enough if it’s in a report and it doesn’t get acted upon. It’s not good 

enough that we fail to go and do what is necessary to do this. 

So as we start to look at this, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your 

leadership on this area. What you are going to find are two bulldogs in a bipartisan way with Mr. Connolly and I. We’re not going 

to let this go. And it’s not because I ride it. It’s just the safety and 

health and welfare of the people of this greater Washington, D.C. 

metro area that is at stake. We’ve got to fix it. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I’ll yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. 

And I’ll hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any member who’d like to submit a written statement. And recognize Mr. 

Connolly for a unanimous consent request. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent that the written statements from Democratic Whip Steny 

Hoyer and Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen be entered into the 

record. 

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. MICA. We’ll now recognize our panel of witnesses. And I’m 

pleased to welcome to—this morning the Honorable Chris—Christopher Hart, chairman of the NTSB; Mr. Matthew Welbes, executive director of the Federal Transit Administration; Mr. Paul 


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Wiedefeld, who is the general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; Mr. Jack Evans, chairman of the 

Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority; and Mr. Raymond 

Jackson, second vice president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, 

Local 689. I’d like to welcome all of our witnesses. 

This is an investigation and oversight committee hearing, and we 

do swear in all of our witnesses. So if you’ll please rise. Raise your 

right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about 

to give before this committee of Congress is the whole truth and 

nothing but the truth? 

And the record will reflect that all witnesses have answered in 

the affirmative. 

I think—well, maybe not everybody’s been here, but we try to 

limit our testimony to 5 minutes. And if you have a request for additional information, data, or testimony to be added to the record, 

just request that through the chair. And your entire statement will 

be made part of the record. 

So we’ll start out this morning and recognize first Mr. Hart, 

chairman of the NTSB. Welcome back, sir. And you are recognized. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER A. HART 

Mr. HART. Thank you. And good morning, Chairman Mica, 

Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member Connolly, and members of 

the two subcommittees. Thank you for inviting me to testify today 

on behalf of the NTSB. 

Chairman Mica, thank you for your years of service in Congress 

and all that you have done to advance transportation safety. I’d 

like to join all the accolades that you have already received this 

morning. I also appreciate Congress’ continued attention to oversight of rail transit safety on WMATA’s Metrorail system. 

About 3 weeks ago, the NTSB announced its most wanted list of 

transportation safety improvements for 2017 and 2018, which 

again included improving rail transit safety oversight. The NTSB 

investigations of rail transit accidents involving WMATA continue 

to show that safety oversight of WMATA is unreliable, which increases the risk of further accidents, injuries, and loss of life. An 

effective independent oversight system must be created to ensure 

that the highest possible level of safety is afforded to WMATA’s 

riders and employees. 

Inadequate oversight of WMATA’s Metrorail system is a persistent problem. In general, the NTSB investigations of WMATA 

have found that although safety program plans were in place, they 

were not effectively implemented or overseen. Oversight challenges 

regarding WMATA are particularly acute because of WMATA’s 

unique oversight structure. Most transit properties involve one jurisdiction, and a few involve two, one of which typically takes oversight responsibility. WMATA is the only transit property in the 

United States that involves three jurisdictions: Maryland, Virginia, 

and the District of Columbia. Moreover, these three jurisdictions 

collectively share oversight responsibility. This constitutes a challenge seen by no other rail transit system in this country. 


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My written statement further details the history of rail transit 

safety oversight in general and of WMATA’s 45 years of inadequate 

safety oversight. Despite efforts over the years to improve the 

FTA’s rail transit safety oversight capabilities, the NTSB’s investigation of the fatal electric arcing and smoke accident at L’Enfant 

Plaza on January 12, 2015 revealed a transit system with no effective safety oversight. 

As a result of this investigation, the NTSB issued urgent safety 

recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation on September 

30, 2015, to seek authority for the Federal Railroad Administration 

to exercise safety oversight over WMATA. Unlike the Federal Transit Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration has robust 

regulatory inspection and enforcement powers, allowing it to more 

quickly and more effectively address hazards and improve the overall safety of WMATA’s rail operations. 

The Secretary of Transportation instead tasked the Federal 

Transit Administration with direct safety oversight of Metrorail; 

the first such direct oversight that the FTA has ever exercised. The 

FTA has limited staff to carry out the function, has no regulations 

against which to measure compliance, and does not have the authority to levy civil or individual penalties in response to safety deficiencies. 

The Department of Transportation furthermore envisioned a 

short-term FTA oversight rule—role, imposing a deadline of February 9, 2017 for WMATA’s three jurisdictions to create an effective State oversight agency. Yet in the face of that, we’ve just 

learned that Maryland and Virginia have recently notified DOT 

that they will not meet this deadline. The NTSB remains concerned 

that Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia will continue 

to encounter impediments. I want to stress again the difficulty in 

forming an oversight body that reports to three jurisdictions. There 

is still no known date by which such a body will be established. 

In the meantime, we continue to investigate accidents that illustrate the need for immediate action. Yesterday, the NTSB issued 

an accident brief on the East Falls Church derailment that occurred on July 29, 2016, already referred to in this hearing. The 

probable cause of the accident was a wide track gauge condition resulting from the sustained use of deteriorating wooden cross ties 

due do WMATA’s ineffective inspection and maintenance practices 

and inadequate safety oversight. 

Of particular concern is that NTSB investigators learned that the 

defective track conditions that lead to the East Falls Church derailment had been previously identified by WMATA inspectors, yet 

were not properly remediated. NTSB investigators were also provided additional documentation from WMATA showing almost 

17,000 open defects reported by WMATA track workers, some going 

back as far as October 2008, as already mentioned this morning, 

and these were still—are still waiting to be repaired. 

This accident further illustrates why immediate action is required to address safety issues at WMATA. The NTSB remains 

convinced that with the history of accidents at WMATA, the FRA, 

Federal Railroad Administration, their more established oversight 

program is vital to increasing passenger safety. 


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Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to 

responding to your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Hart follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. I recognize now the FTA administrator. Welcome, sir, 

and you’re recognized. 

STATEMENT OF MATTHEW WELBES 

Mr. WELBES. Chairmen Mica and Meadows, Ranking Member 

Connolly, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me 

to provide an update on FTA’s oversight of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority. 

And, Chairman Mica, thank you for your support building public 

transportation and our work together on SunRail over the years. 

Safety remains the top priority for FTA and the United States 

Department of Transportation. And with that in mind, FTA has 

used the authority granted to us by Congress to ensure safety improvements among FTA grantees, including Metrorail. At this time, 

significant work remains to bring Metrorail into a state of good repair, to build a strong safety culture, and to improve the agency’s 

financial outlook. Years of underinvestment and deferred maintenance have contributed to Metrorail’s deterioration. And it’s because of this deterioration that Metrorail’s daily passengers have 

not received the safe reliable service they should expect. 

Recently, FTA has observed important steps by WMATA leadership prioritizing safety over revenue service. But establishing and 

ensuring an enduring safety culture remains a critical task. WMATA received over $450 million from FTA in fiscal year 2016. 

And FTA’s ensured that these capital dollars are prioritized for improving safety, infrastructure, and reliability. In some instances, 

FTA has used this authority to redirect Federal funding to states 

in a state of good repair priorities. 

During 2016, FTA conducted investigations into Metrorail track 

integrity, stop signal overruns, and vehicle securement that led to 

specific corrective actions that WMATA must complete. There are 

results from FTA’s work. For the first time since 2012, all rail traffic controllers in WMATA’s rail operations control center have completed required annual certifications, and approximately 2,000 employees who had expired roadway worker protection program certifications are now retrained and certified. 

In addition, while FTA is not in charge of the day-to-day work 

of SafeTrack, FTA directives guided WMATA’s prioritization of 

SafeTrack work to locations where the most urgent repairs were required to reduce the risk of smoke and fire events. As a result, 

WMATA corrected numerous instances of degraded fire and life 

safety equipment in tunnels that affect emergency passenger evacuations. 

In addition to investigations, FTA has conducted both announced 

and unannounced inspections and leads accident investigations as 

warranted. FTA conducted more than 300 inspections during the 

past year. We’ve identified more than 900 remedial actions. And to 

date, WMATA has addressed two-thirds of those. During our inspections, FTA has identified operating practices and track conditions that led to immediate orders for slow zones or track segment 

closures protecting passengers and workers from unsafe conditions, 

and much more progress is required. 

It is important to note Secretary Foxx has made clear that FTA’s 

role is temporary based on the Federal statutory framework. Our 


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work will continue until Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia establish a new State safety oversight agency as required 

under Federal law. The three jurisdictions are required to receive 

certification of a new State safety oversight program no later than 

February 9, 2017, and failure to meet this deadline could result in 

the withholding of up to $15 million in Federal transit funding 

from 22 communities in Maryland and Virginia outside of the 

Washington, D.C. region. 

In conclusion, FTA provides robust direct safety oversight of Metrorail that is making a difference. Based on our unique knowledge 

of transit agencies throughout the U.S., we are supporting and 

guiding the critical steps needed to improve WMATA infrastructure, safety culture, and operations, while ensuring that the jurisdictions step forward and take responsibility for their statutory 

role. 

The WMATA bus and rail system is vital to our Nation’s capital 

region, the economy, and the millions of people who rely on it, including me. There is more work ahead that must occur at WMATA 

to make it safer and more reliable. 

I thank you for this opportunity to discuss FTA’s direct safety 

oversight of Metrorail, and I look forward to answering questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Welbes follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. We’ll now hear from the WMATA administrator, and 

welcome you back. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Mica, 

Chairman Meadows, and Ranking Member Connolly, and members 

of the committee. I’m Paul Wiedefeld, the general manager and 

chief executive officer of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit 

Authority known as Metro. I want to especially thank and recognize Chairman Mica who has a long and distinguished career, obviously, in helping infrastructure around the country. Thank you for 

your service, sir. 

Immediately upon joining Metro last year, we went to work to restore public confidence by improving safety and security, and making service more reliable and getting Metro’s financial house in 

order. As we work to improve Metro, I have sought to and will continue to make clear to our customers, employees, and the entire region that safety comes before service. The year-long SafeTrack program reflected that commitment to safety over service. 

SafeTrack accelerates 3 years’ worth of work into approximately 

1 year. The plan significantly expands maintenance time on 

weeknights, weekends, and midday hours, and includes 15 safety 

surges for major projects. And as I detailed in my written testimony, we have implemented a number of other programs to continue and improve customer and employee safety, as well as the 

customer experience. 

To sustain this progress going forward, we have proposed a preventive maintenance program to the WMATA board. We are requesting an additional 8 hours a week to do preventive maintenance inspections on the system. The goal of the preventive maintenance program is to reduce service disruptions due to track failures and create opportunities to identify and repair track problems 

before they disrupt daytime rail service. 

On the financial side of the house, Metro ended fiscal year 2016 

on budget and received an on-time clean audit with no findings in 

the first time in 3 years. Also, for the first year in recent history, 

Metro’s capital program invested $1 billion in the system, spending 

85 percent of projected capital budget in fiscal year 2016, compared 

to spending approximately 65 percent in previous years. And in the 

current fiscal year, we are on a path to spend nearly $1.2 billion, 

meeting our budget forecast. 

Looking ahead, WMATA must bridge a significant projected resource gap in order to achieve a balanced operating budget in fiscal 

year 2018. Daily ridership on bus and rail has declined significantly in response to poor service, quality, and reliability, as well 

as external factors, while at the same time costs have continued to 

increase. To address this funding gap, the proposed operating budget recommends a number of actions, including the elimination of an 

additional 500 positions for a total of 1,000 positions in fiscal year 

2018, outsourcing certain functions, a reduction in rail service, increased fares, and elimination of certain bus routes, and increased 

subsidies at the local jurisdiction level. 

While we will continue to improve the overall safety and financial management of the system, we will be putting much greater 

emphasis on customer experience, particularly with regards to reducing unscheduled delays due to poor track conditions, improving 


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the reliability of our train fleet, and enhancing the station environments in 2017. Our goal for 2017 is to reduce delays caused by 

train cars—train car use—train cars by 25 percent and unplanned 

delays caused by track issues by 50 percent. 

Finally, we will be establishing a customer-driven metrics which 

will measure our performance to inform our decisionmaking from 

a customer point of view and will be used as a management tool 

for employee accountability. 

I will close by thanking Congress for your continued support of 

Metro through the Federal funding, particularly the PRIIA funding, which are invested in long-term improvements to the system. 

You have my full commitment that I will continue to work to get 

Metro back to good. Thank you for your time and attention. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

We’ll now hear from Chairman Evans. You’re recognized. 

STATEMENT OF JACK EVANS 

Mr. EVANS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And good morning, Chairman Mica, Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member Duckworth, Ranking Member Connolly, members of 

the subcommittee. And I too want to lend my voice to Mr. Chairman Mica for your great service here to the city and to the country. 

Thank you for that. 

I serve as the principle director from Washington, D.C. on the 

WMATA board, and for the last 10 months have been the chairman 

of the board of WMATA. In addition to that, I am the Ward 2 council member on the Council of the District of Columbia, which represents the central business district, 11 surrounding neighborhoods, 12 Metro stops. Since 1999, I’ve chaired the council’s committee on finance and revenue. And I appreciate the opportunity to 

testify before the committee today and provide updates from my 

prior testimony in April 13 of 2016. And since then, WMATA has 

taken significant steps to improve safety, reliability, and fiscal 

management of the system. 

I do want to personally take this opportunity to thank Congressman Hoyer, Congressman Norton, Congressman Connolly, Congressman Meadows, and Congressman Comstock, who I had an opportunity to meet with personally on these matters. And I want to 

really take this time to thank you for taking the time to sit down 

personally and meet with me. 

At the top of the organization, a majority of the board of directors has turned over in the past few years. We now have 12 out 

of 16 new board members, including three new Federal representatives who joined the board last spring. In my estimation, and I 

served on the board back in the 1990s for 10 years, this is the best 

qualified, most involved, and most transparent board that we have 

ever had at Metro. 

Our general manager, Paul Wiedefeld, has now been at the helm 

for a year. And in that time, he’s been able to put together a new 

senior leadership team and implement major initiatives to fix the 

rail system, restructure, and right size the agency, and better 

maintain the rail car fleet. Mr. Wiedefeld will provide—has provided a detailed information about these, but to summarize again, 

WMATA has made personnel changes, operational changes. 


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So far this year, he has hired a new chief operating officer, a new 

chief safety officer, both of whom have decades of experience in 

New York City, a new general counsel, and a new chief of internal 

business operations to improve our procurement and administrative functions. He’s also restructured the management team in 

March to break down some of the longstanding divisions within the 

agency. As pointed out, he fired 20 senior managers, and has already eliminated over 500 positions in the agency. 

The agency has been undergoing the aggressive SafeTrack 

project, which we have discussed here. However, it is important to 

keep in mind that SafeTrack will not solve all the agency’s problems. And it will make it safer, it will make it more reliable, but 

in the words of—and, Mr. Connolly, you may appreciate this—Winston Churchill—I know you’re a big fan as well as I am—it’s not 

the end, it’s not the beginning of the end, it’s probably just the end 

of the beginning. And that is a true statement about where we are 

in Metro’s maintenance. 

WMATA’s financial condition can be summed up in three numbers. If you remember last time I was here, I told you the numbers: 

300, 18, and 2.5. The numbers have changed a little but not much. 

First, the 300 is 290. 290 is a projected $290 million operating 

shortfall in the fiscal year 2018 budget, which we are dealing with 

now. Runs from July 1 to June 30 of 2018. The gap includes $103 

million from ridership and revenue loss, $87 million from expense 

growth related to SafeTrack, and $100 million that the agency 

transferred from capital dollars to operating dollars to balance the 

budget last year. 

Next, 18. Eighteen is still 18. It’s the $18 billion in capital needs 

that the agency faces over the next 10 years. WMATA has produced now a detailed capital needs inventory and reported back to 

the board this week that the cost of simply deferred maintenance 

and the state of good repair needs over the next 10 years is $17.4 

billion. This is essentially a barebones capital investment needed 

to get the system back to a baseline of operations. 

Additionally, WMATA should execute approximately $800 million 

of preventive maintenance measures over the next 10 years in 

order to improve its reliability. These capital needs do not include 

an estimated $7 billion in new needs related to compliance with 

NTSB and FTA directives and other issues, particularly likes the 

Rosslyn bottleneck. Briefly, that is the Rosslyn bottleneck need for 

a new tunnel because of the construction in Virginia to carry the 

trains into the District. It is a $3.5 billion item that is not included 

in any of our numbers. And, frankly, hasn’t even be started the 

studying of how we’re going to build this tunnel. 

Finally, $2.8. Two point five was the number I gave you before. 

In the months I’ve been here since April, it is now $2.8. It is 

WMATA’s unfunded pension and other post-employment benefits liability deficit. The WMATA board has created a special pension 

committee to review our pension plans and try to figure out how 

to deal with this unfunded liability. $2.8 billion is a staggering 

amount for an organization of our size that is an unfunded liability. 

If we fail to address these pension obligations, WMATA will find 

itself in exactly the same place District of Columbia was in in 1995. 


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We had a $10 billion unfunded liability, and it almost brought the 

city down. 

The financial situation of WMATA is dire. To fill the short-term 

operating budget gap, the jurisdictions, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia, need to increase their subsidy contributions collectively next 

year by $250 million. The alternatives, raising fares by 35 percent, 

closing low ridership stations during off-peak hours, continuing to 

use capital funds for our operating budget, puts WMATA at serious 

risk. And again on the capital side, without an increase from our 

current $1.1 billion annual capital funding resources to approximately $1.8 billion, we will continue to have the system we have 

today, only further stressed by the hundreds of thousands of new 

riders that we anticipate in the next decades. 

It is important to note here, as Mr. Wiedefeld mentioned, that in 

addition to more capital funding, WMATA has improved its capability to utilize those funds. And in the past, we were only spending 

about 65 percent of them. Mr. Wiedefeld has now got us up to the 

point where we spent almost 100 percent of the money on capital 

that we have allocated for the year. We spent over $1 billion, which 

was the highest ever. 

So finally in conclusion, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss 

with you today the continued financial problems at WMATA and 

the steps we have taken to put the agency on a better footing moving forward. It’s easy to think of WMATA as an autonomous entity 

separate from the rest of the region. But it’s important to remember this: WMATA is a $40 billion asset, a $40 billion asset, in 

which all of us, Federal Government, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, 

each have a 25 percent interest. So with this $40 billion asset, 

what are we collectively going to do to take this asset and maintain 

it and make it better? 

So I believe with an increased funding, with the steps our general manager is taking, and with the collective will of all of us in 

the region, we can fix WMATA. And as has been said before, failure is not an option. So thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, and I look forward to any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Evans follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

And we’ll hear from Mr. Raymond Jackson who’s with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local. Welcome, sir. You’re recognized. 

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND JACKSON 

Mr. JACKSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, ranking committee 

members. Mr. Chairman, I also want to thank you for your years 

of dedicated service. 

My name is Raymond Jackson and I am the second vice president of ATU Local 689. Today I am here to give insight into the 

SafeTrack program and the challenges that are facing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in the near and distant 

future. 

When SafeTrack was first introduced, Local 689 was hopeful that 

it would mark a departure from the culture and old practices at 

WMATA. As things have progressed, we are now concerned that 

WMATA’s failure to consult with our union and with the experienced employees on the ground will be its fatal flaw. 

Had our input been solicited, we would have worked to find a 

better way of getting the work done without disrupting the lives of 

so many riders in this region. We all have family members who 

ride the system daily, and most of us ride the system as well. So 

we know the frustrations with SafeTrack firsthand. Unfortunately, 

the reality of SafeTrack, that it is a necessity at this point. If work 

had been done over the past 20 years, WMATA would not be disrupting the lives of the people in this region in the way that they 

have the past 6 months. At this point, SafeTrack is what riders of 

the region are left with after decades of mismanagement and neglect. 

We are also concerned that WMATA continues reliance on outside contractors to do the work that can be done by Local 689 members has become a way for private companies with no investment 

in this system to make boatloads of money at the expense of the 

public and our riders. Many times our members end up having to 

redo work done by these outside companies. It is frustrating for 

frontline employees and shows a lack of respect for the expertise 

that our members have. 

Our local deals with constant complaints about the lack of employee morale. In other transit systems in this country and around 

the world, there’s a culture of labor-management cooperation where 

employees are treated with dignity on the job. Their opinions are 

valued and they have a sense of ownership in the work that they 

do. That is not the WMATA way. By and large, the invaluable 

source of knowledge that has represented our long-term employees 

is overlooked and sometimes even ignored by management, which 

leads me to WMATA’s budget proposal going into fiscal year 2018. 

Local 689 is concerned that the drastic service cuts and fare increases proposed by the agency in response to the impact of 

SafeTrack are sure to be the death of this system. The fact is people need safe, affordable, and reliable transit service. The only way 

to bring back riders is to restore public confidence in Metro. This 

will no doubt be a slow process. We have to prove ourself all over 


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again to a public that has understandably had enough of Metro’s 

enormous problems. 

Asking our riders to deal with even longer waits through longer 

headways and stranding bus riders by eliminating 14 bus lines is 

not going to restore customer satisfaction. Neither will increasing 

rail and Metro bus fares. The proposed increase will put a hurt on 

some of our most transit-dependent riders who have no other way 

to get around. Like most transit systems that cut routes, WMATA 

is looking toward those with low ridership, early morning, late 

night, and weekend service. People who work nontraditional hours 

will be disproportionately affected. 

Laying off 1,000 employees, once again shedding sorely needed 

knowledge and putting a huge burden on a shell of a workforce, is 

not only ill-advised but also dangerous. Yet, this is WMATA’s plan 

to dig out of this hole. 

Through its slash-and-burn budget proposal, Metro is using the 

self-inflicted SafeTrack crisis to justify mass cuts in service that 

would never be accepted in this region under normal circumstances. Metro riders need to call them out, letting them know 

that we need more, not less service. If we go along with this plan, 

people will forever abandon the system and it will crumble, causing 

an embarrassing mobility crisis in our Nation’s Capital. 

The answer to Metro’s current budget hole is a short-term cash 

infusion, to get the system back on its feet. If Congress had not 

come into the aid of the American auto industry during the financial crisis 7 years ago with the $80 billion bailout, these companies 

would have evaporated. Now America’s transit system needs a 

smaller boost. We call on Congress, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia 

to come through with the revenues necessary to see Metro through 

this crisis and urge the agency to work hand-in-hand with us in an 

effort to prolong and develop a long-term dedicated funding stream 

from the Federal Government and the jurisdictions that will help 

improve the system and ensure that we never face these dire circumstances ever again. Transit riders and our members deserve 

nothing less. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Jackson follows:] 


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Mr. MICA. I thank all of the witnesses and we’ll turn now to 

questions. I guess I started out commenting on the East Falls 

Church derailment NTSB report. And it quite specifically says that 

interviewers suggested inspectors fabricated track measurement 

and inspection reports. I’ve got some of the inspection reports that 

were ignored. 

Mr. Wiedefeld, I know we just got the report yesterday. And almost every time you come before me, I say, well, steps need to be 

taken to hold people accountable. And you’ve done that. You got rid 

of some of the management people who were not effective and others. 

Now, it seems like it’s fairly simple to trace this back to people 

from the report and who they interviewed. And then the reports 

that were submitted, someone was responsible for ignoring those 

reports. Can these people be held accountable? 

Now, you know me. My recommendation is fire those that did not 

perform. Can we have some results and action, based on what 

we’ve seen from this report? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes, Mr. Chairman, if I could just give you a bit 

of background. What the NTSB action report is the information 

that we gave them. That was part of an independent investigation 

that I had started immediately where I had outside people come in. 

Mr. MICA. So have those people been—I mean, you had the information and gave it to them. Have you taken action already? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. What I did immediately is once I basically 

got informed about what we were hearing and what we were seeing, I started a criminal investigation. I’ve hired two independent 

prosecutors. That investigation is still open. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. So I do not want to comment any further on 

that. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. But that is exactly what we are doing. 

Mr. MICA. Again, holding people accountable, and there are consequences for inappropriate or negligent action, and if it’s worse 

than that they need to be—I’m told that the—I asked about an inspector general for the operation or someone overseeing. I’m told 

that that’s a weak position, either through the performance of the 

current individual or the position not having the authority to go in 

and take some action. What’s your assessment? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. The OIG answers to the board; they do not answer to me. That office is under—— 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Evans, do you want to comment on it? Again, unless you have somebody with some teeth to go after people—the information that I’m getting is the IG is either weak in performance 

or the position is weak. What do you say? 

Mr. EVANS. What I have tried to do as the chairman, Mr. Chairman, is to empower the IG to be more aggressive than it has been 

in the past. 

Mr. MICA. Do you set that authority up or is that set by statute, 

Federal statute? 

Mr. EVANS. Federal statute. That is in the compact. 

Mr. MICA. It is, Federal statute? 

Mr. EVANS. Yes. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MICA. I’m not going to be here, but that might be something 

you all could look at is strengthening the IG position so it’s got 

some teeth. Somebody’s got to do something. I mean, they see 

something wrong and there has to be action taken. That’s why we 

have the IG system, and if it’s weak. 

So that would be something I would recommend, either—if you 

don’t have that authority, you need to get the information to the 

folks that can modify that and do it quickly. 

Mr. Hart, what’s the status of our arcing connections? 

Mr. HART. Thank you for the question. We just issued our final 

report on that recently, so the recommendations are relatively recent. The recommendations that are a little older were our urgent 

recommendations about the connection of the power cables, that 

they needed—that we saw many of them were missing some of the 

sleeves to keep—— 

Mr. MICA. Right. 

Mr. HART. —the stuff out. 

Mr. MICA. I went down, looked at that. 

Mr. HART. Correct. 

Mr. MICA. And saw the arc. 

Mr. HART. And we’re seeing good progress on the action. WMATA 

has been quite cooperative. 

Mr. MICA. But where are we? Do you know? Maybe Mr. 

Wiedefeld can tell me. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. We’ve eliminated—it’s the Orange boots. 

We have basically replaced all those in the underground system, 

which is where the key issue is, and we have—basically, we have 

about 5 percent left on the aboveground, and that’s to be done with 

the remaining surges. When we get into those surge areas, we’ll replace those. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. So you’re about 5 percent. So the smoke— 

maybe this site that I cited that you can go on and see if Metro’s 

on fire can be taken down pretty soon. 

Okay. Arcing and the connections. Communications, worked on 

that for God knows how long. Where are we? I understand the 

agreement has been executed with the cell companies. The installation has begun. I understand there’s only three areas between stations that are now operating, up and operating. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Right. And we will continue to do that. Basically, we’re doing that as part of the shutdown that we’re doing. 

Mr. MICA. I know, but that’s not good. What is the schedule? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. The Red Line, east side of Red Line will be done 

in 2017. 

Mr. MICA. How many total, 70 is it, areas that aren’t covered? 

And we have three underway, and then I’m told there are some 

that are in the process of being—having the equipment installed. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. But what’s the balance for the balance? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. We will have the Red Line done in 2017. We 

will have the Blue and the Orange Line done east of Metro Center. 

Mr. MICA. Give me the numbers. So we’re at three. In another 

year, will we have 50? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I can give you the entire schedule. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MICA. Okay. I’d like that in the record. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I will. 

Mr. MICA. And you can follow up. 

Mr. MICA. Again, if you don’t have communication, I mean, when 

they couldn’t communicate—and we held funds up a couple of 

times. I think I participated in that to get your attention. But 

we’ve got to have the communications between the stations, both 

for the safety of the passenger but also for the crew and everybody 

else to communicate. So that’s one that is still undone. 

Okay, back to Hart. You had 16,800 recommendations—or defects, rather. Tell me the status of any of your recommendations 

that are undone or some of these defects that you cited. 

Mr. HART. Thank you for the question. This goes to the fundamental premise that we said the Federal Railroad Administration 

needs to be in charge, because when there are defects that aren’t 

fixed then the FRA would go after that. There is no—— 

Mr. MICA. I’ll go to FTA in a second. But, to your knowledge, 

there’s still a huge number of defects that have not been addressed, 

one; and then, two, the recommendations that you had, I forget 

how many you had of that, but very few of those have been met. 

Mr. HART. Let me clarify. It’s not only defects that have not been 

fixed; it’s also maintenance schedules that aren’t being done. 

Mr. MICA. Right. Right. 

Mr. HART. They were supposed to inspect that every—twice a 

week, and we found they were inspecting it monthly in the crossover. So that’s an example of where their own internal requirements for—WMATA’s own internal requirements for maintenance 

schedules weren’t being met. 

Mr. MICA. But, again, you had the list of recommendations for 

improvements, and then we have a larger list of defects that were 

identified. Mr. Wiedefeld, do you want to respond? Where are we? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. We do have a very large backlog. Basically, 

we’re prioritizing those that are the most severe. And that is one 

of the reasons why we’re asking for additional time to do preventive maintenance on an ongoing basis. 

Mr. MICA. What percentage of your maintenance is contractedout work, and some of these repairs? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I don’t know the exact percentage, but we 

have—— 

Mr. MICA. Twenty percent, 10 percent? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. In that range. In that range. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. Well, based on the images that were given to 

me, you got a lot of people out there but not a lot of them working, 

and something has to be done there. I mean, Mr. Jackson ain’t 

going to like this, but—and I think you still have some negotiations 

to go or something, but whatever you have to—whatever steps to 

get somebody in there that can perform. If they can’t do it, they 

need to go. If you are hiring contract people, they need to perform 

and have them take over some of that responsibility. 

Okay. Let me go finally to FTA. Since September, I think Mr. 

Connolly and I both agree FTA has limited capability—it’s been 

mostly a grant agency, I guess—to conduct the safety oversight. 

The recommendation from Hart and NTSB was FRA. Do you want 

to speak to the deficits in capability that you have? And I underVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:59 Jul 21, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26176.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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stand some of that’s been made up by partnering or cooperating 

with FRA. Mr. Welbes. 

Mr. WELBES. So a year ago, when FTA determined that D.C., 

Maryland, and Virginia were not capably carrying out their State 

safety oversight responsibilities, which is part of the Federal statutory structure, FTA used authority that Congress had given us and 

we stepped in. And we have the authority to conduct investigations, and we’ve conducted four investigations during the past year. 

We’ve looked at stop signal overruns, track integrity, vehicle securement, traction power. We’ve issued report-outs on three of 

those. We’ve issued requirements to WMATA for specific actions associated with those investigations. We’ve conducted over 300 inspections. We’re on site at WMATA about six days out of seven 

during the past year. 

And as a result of our inspection work, we’ve issued 900—identified 900 defects for WMATA to correct. They’ve corrected about 

two-thirds of them to date. In a number of instances, our inspections of track have resulted in taking track out of service or slow 

orders. And the oversight of Metrorail exercised by FTA is probably 

the most scrutiny U.S. DOT has ever applied to about 220 miles 

of track. 

We also have the authority to direct spending, and in two instances, at least, we’ve directed WMATA to move spending from 

one purpose to another. We directed spending in one case to, $20 

million toward the 7000-series cars to replace the 1000-series cars, 

which are subject to an NTSB recommendation to remove them 

from service. We also redirected WMATA funds toward corrective 

actions that FTA identified a year ago, one of which includes replacing and updating a track management inventory system, to get 

a handle on the defects that have been identified. 

We also have requested from Congress in the past the authority 

to issue civil penalties, and we’ve also requested the authority 

three times from Congress for the ability for criminal penalties 

since 2008. We’ve asked for that from Congress. 

Mr. MICA. And that has not been granted. Let me turn to Mr. 

Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Welbes, listening 

to you, apparently you’re just providing robust safety oversight. 

You’re sitting next to the man charged with transportation safety 

who says otherwise. He says you don’t have the capability. 

I met with Virginia authorities yesterday who are writing their 

part of the tri-State safety oversight legislation, which, by the way, 

Mr. Hart, is subject to legislative cycles. It doesn’t happen like 

that. Our legislature meets in January, and only the last 2 months 

we’re a part-time legislature. And they tell me that you don’t cooperate with them, that, in fact, when they seek information from 

FTA on Metro, they’re told that it’s proprietary. They’ve been denied documents and access to information they think is material. 

And I’d like you to address Mr. Hart, who says you don’t have 

the capability. Far from your testimony of robust oversight, you 

don’t have the capability for much by way of safety oversight, 

frankly, and you’ve had to borrow from resources from the FRA. 

Mr. WELBES. So, Mr. Connolly, the recommendation from the 

NTSB we take very seriously. A year ago, when we recognized that 


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the States were not performing their duty, we used the authority 

that we have at U.S. DOT. So we’ve requested authority from Congress. 

And the recommendation that Mr. Hart has put forward would 

require a Member of Congress to introduce a bill that would allow 

the U.S. DOT Secretary to assign WMATA safety oversight to the 

FRA. And then FRA would have to substitute its rules for 

WMATA’s rule book. So the Secretary cannot do that without Congress taking action. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, I will simply point out that the man sitting 

next to you, his agency authored a report issued yesterday that reiterated that it’s the FRA that ought to have jurisdiction here, not 

the FTA, because of capability issues. 

Mr. WELBES. All right. So we have also requested from Congress 

additional resources and authority to put into effect the new safety 

responsibilities that Congress gave to us in 2012. So we requested 

back in 2009, after the Fort Totten incident, additional Federal Authority—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Why not just give it to the FRA, as the NTSB 

recommended initially? 

Mr. WELBES. So Congress, in two successive authorizations, both 

in MAP–21 and the FAST Act, assigned that responsibility to the 

Federal Transit Administration, and we are assertively exercising 

it right now. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Does the Secretary of Transportation have the 

statutory authority nonetheless to act on the NTSB recommendation and give it to FRA? 

Mr. WELBES. The Secretary of Transportation could act on the 

FRA recommendation, which is to ask Congress for authority to reassign the role for—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. He chose not do that. 

Mr. WELBES. A member of Congress can introduce a bill in the 

chain. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, wait a minute, don’t beg the question. The 

Secretary of Transportation received a report from the NTSB that 

involved fatalities, and their recommendation—very serious—said 

FRA needs to have this, not FTA, for lots of reasons, not because 

you aren’t willing but because you’re not capable, and safety comes 

first. 

And the Secretary chose to do nothing about that other than give 

it to you. His hands aren’t tied. I don’t remember receiving any legislative request from the Secretary of Transportation to give him 

the authority to make sure he can implement the NTSB recommendation. This is not a trivial issue. 

Mr. WELBES. We have pulled together substantial resources. 

We’ve created a WMATA oversight office. We’ve pulled together a 

team from DOT, including FTA officials and other capable people 

in the Department, to do direct oversight of WMATA. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So do you dispute the latest report from NTSB 

that says, despite your pulling together substantial resources, you 

weren’t on the job at the East Falls Church derailment? 

Mr. WELBES. We have identified—we have walked miles of track. 

We’ve applied more scrutiny to the 220 miles of Metrorail than the 

Federal Government has ever applied to any rail system. While 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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we’ve identified many instances where track has been taken out of 

service, we did not find the Falls Church incident—we are doing 

oversight of Metrorail. Metrorail is responsible for the day-to-day 

oversight. They actually have standards that the NTSB’s report 

identifies, which call for two times—biweekly reviews of all tracks 

safety—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Hart, I’m going to give you—sorry, I’m running out of time. 

Mr. Hart, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to that. 

Is that how you see things? 

Mr. HART. Fundamentally, the starting point of effective oversight is regulation so that everybody knows what can be done and 

what can’t be done. Those aren’t there. They won’t be there any 

time soon. We were looking at not only the structure. This is not 

a criticism of the FTA. We’re looking at the structure that presently exists. That structure is not there with FTA. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. 

Mr. HART. In order for them to have that, that’s going to take 

quite a bit of time. The FRA already has it. We were looking to do 

an immediate remedy instead of waiting for all that—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And does the Secretary of Transportation have 

the authority to implement that immediate recommendation of 

yours? 

Mr. HART. Our recommendation was to ask Congress to include 

the—within a list that’s a legislative list this property, WMATA, so 

that it would be overseen by the Federal Railroad—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And did the Secretary act on that recommendation? 

Mr. HART. No. The Secretary said that he would prefer to leave 

the oversight with Federal Transit Administration. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. Evans, you’re a politician, you run for office, right? 

Mr. EVANS. Indeed, I just got reelected. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Congratulations. 

Mr. EVANS. Thank you. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So one of the things we have to do in politics is 

build public support, especially for things that involve costs. Is that 

right? 

Mr. EVANS. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So do you think your comments and those of Mr. 

Price, your D.C. colleague on the Metro board, are helpful to those 

of us in Virginia and Maryland, in trying to build any kind of public consensus about a dedicated source of revenue, when you threaten on that board to close down the largest single connection to 

Metro in northern Virginia? 

Your remarks were calculated to be helpful to us. Is that right? 

Or were you just playing games to appeal to somebody in maybe 

your jurisdiction, without regard to the implications in our jurisdictions, where we’re trying to actually be supportive? 

Mr. EVANS. The background on Mr. Price’s comments is the following. 

Ms. COMSTOCK. We can’t hear. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. EVANS. Sure. The background on Mr. Price’s comments is the 

following: We have a $290 million shortfall this year that will only 

get greater in the future. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Evans, I don’t need a lecture about the current condition of Metro. I know it intimately. I’m asking you a 

question about what you and Mr. Price were getting at in threatening Virginia’s largest investment in Metro, which, by the way, involves Federal funding. The largest single TIFIA grant in the history of the Department of Transportation went to the Silver Line. 

So it involves Federal participation, and that has implications for 

whether we renew the 150 million CIP, let alone talk about a Federal operating subsidy, which you and I share. 

And I’m here to suggest to you that your comments and those of 

Mr. Price were cheap and reckless and have huge implications on 

my side of the river. You don’t want, at least you say you don’t 

want—you campaigned against the parochialism of your colleagues 

on the board, and yet you and Mr. Price are now the exemplars of 

the very parochialism you decried. And you’ve done real damage on 

our side of the river. Do you want to respond to that? 

Mr. EVANS. If you’d give me a moment, I’d like to. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Of course. 

Mr. EVANS. So, again, everything is on the table in trying to deal 

with these huge deficits we have, going forward. It’s clear to me 

now that neither Virginia nor Maryland will do a dedicated funding 

source any time in the future, and it’s unlikely we will get any Federal help. So I have—the cards I have are the deck I have to play 

with. 

Mr. Price was only responding to a question in suggesting how 

we can save money. The Silver Line, as you know, is not being 

built by Metro. It’s being funded by, as you say, Federal dollars 

and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although, when the Silver Line 

is built—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And by a special tax district entirely funded by 

Virginia businesses. 

Mr. EVANS. I understand. But when the Silver Line is built, you 

turn it over to us to operate. The ridership on the Silver Line as 

of yesterday in our briefing is one-third of what was predicted. The 

Silver Line was hoped that the ridership would be so great it would 

cover its operating costs. It’s not even close. So we are today losing 

tens of millions of dollars on operating the Silver Line. 

When the Silver Line is complete, given the projections, Metro 

will then be losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year to operate 

the Silver Line. So Mr. Price, who is one of the most successful African American businessmen in the country and is a turnaround 

specialist, looking at this as a business, was saying, how are we 

going to afford to operate the Silver Line to the tune of hundreds 

of millions of dollars a year when we are losing $3- to $400 million 

a year already. 

So I think the answer, Congressman Connolly—and you and I 

are on the same page on this. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I don’t think we are. 

Mr. EVANS. No, we need more funding from the jurisdictions in 

terms of the dedicated funding sources. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CONNOLLY. First of all, I don’t know whether Mr. Price is 

aware of the development plans along the Dulles Corridor, because 

we are building lots of residential development that’s going to 

change those ridership numbers very fast, but it’s dependent on the 

Silver Line being there. In Tysons alone, there are five high-rises 

that have gone up since we opened the Silver Line, with thousands 

of new residents. The goal is to go from 17,000 people who live in 

Tysons to 100,000, and it’s the Silver Line that’s critical for that. 

But let me just say philosophically, you know, it’s very hard to 

listen to that when you’ve threatened a regional veto for any service cuts that affect your District. But you have no compunction to 

say to an entire State that the major investment in Metro ought 

to be closed. And you go down that road and you fracture the regional coalition, you fracture support up here, and you actually do 

real harm to long-term prospects for Metro. And that’s my message 

to you. I’ve run out of time. 

Mr. EVANS. I am a big advocate of expanding Metro. I think the 

Silver Line will be a tremendous addition to Metro. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] Mr. Chairman, Mr. Evans, let me 

come back to you then, because the gentleman makes a valid point. 

Are you suggesting that you looked only at Virginia to close down 

something that had an operational deficit and didn’t look at other 

areas that have operational deficits for closing it down? Because I 

haven’t seen any suggestions other than what the gentleman from 

Virginia is talking about and what Ms. Comstock has mentioned to 

me. And so you’re saying that you wanted to protect D.C. and take 

it from operational deficits that are in Virginia and Maryland? 

Mr. EVANS. No. Actually, Mr. Chairman, there’s a long list of cutbacks in service, many in the District, many in Maryland, many in 

Virginia. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, but what I’ve read in the Washington Post 

and other places is basically anything that touches anything, that 

has anything to do with Washington, D.C., there is this unbelievable outcry that we can’t touch anything. Is that not your position? 

Mr. EVANS. Well, no, Mr. Chairman. Actually, as of yesterday, 

the District made a huge concession to allow the late night hours 

to be curtailed yet again for another year and possibly 2 years, 

which is very much against our interests. But I was able to convince the mayor and the council to go along with that because—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But not do away with them entirely forever. 

Mr. EVANS. Well, we’ll see. Again, you evaluate everything every 

year or 2 years to make sure. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But you get—— 

Mr. EVANS. No, I get your drift. 

Mr. MEADOWS. —my friend’s point is that you’re making a drastic comment that affects Virginia; and then just the little teeny aspects of inconvenience in Washington, D.C., you debate for hours. 

You follow me? 

Mr. EVANS. I do. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So let me go on a little bit back to you, 

Mr. Wiedefeld. Do you believe that the SafeTrack program is placing the system in a state of good repair that will allow riders to 

feel secure and safe on the system? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. WIEDEFELD. I do for the above-ground portion of the system, 

because that’s where our focus has been on, particularly on the rail 

tie portion of it and the fasteners there. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Mr. Evans, do you believe the same 

thing? 

Mr. EVANS. I do, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me come to the FTA. Do you believe that as 

well? 

Mr. WELBES. The SafeTrack work is an important step as part 

of an overall—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That’s not the question. That’s a great answer to 

a question I—they just answered it. So just answer the question. 

Yes or no? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. Mr. Hart, let me come back to you. I want 

to come back to the East Falls Church derailment and what the 

NTSB determined to be the probable cause of this. Could you help 

illuminate us for what the cause of that derailment was? 

Mr. HART. Yes. This is an area, it’s a crossover area crossing over 

between parallel tracks, and it’s an area that has wooden ties and 

the wooden ties were left to deteriorate for quite a long period of 

time. This is a—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what you’re saying is it couldn’t have happened in a short period of time? 

Mr. HART. Correct. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So this happened over a very long period of time? 

Mr. HART. Correct. Some of the ties may even go back to original 

construction. We don’t know, but they’ve been there a while and 

they’ve been deteriorating for a while. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you’re saying the original construction of that 

particular area is left without any maintenance that caused a derailment? 

Mr. HART. Inadequate maintenance in this particular segment 

where we investigated for that accident, correct. We had the— 

that’s why we looked at how frequently were they—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Can we put the picture up on the screen? If you 

all would all turn your attention to this. Now, if you’ll notice that 

wheel there, actually the rail I guess is supposed to be between—— 

Mr. HART. The wheel should stick outside of it, should be outside 

of the rail. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And so it’s actually just on the top of the rail 

there. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. HART. Correct. Correct. Close to derailing, because it’s close 

to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Close—— 

Mr. HART. On the inside side of the rail. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And so, in your opinion, this would be something 

that is not only a hazard, but something that is a derailment waiting to happen? 

Mr. HART. This under FRA rules would have been required to be 

out of service, because of the failure to meet the gauge requirements. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What kind of rules did you talk about? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. HART. Federal Railroad Administration rules would require 

this track to be out of service. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So I guess that’s why we haven’t called them in 

is because they would have seen this? 

Mr. HART. Well, their requirements would say, if you see a defect, you have to act on the defect within 30 days. And this defect 

has been around for a lot longer than 30 days. This would have 

been acted upon or put out of service, one or the other, a long time 

ago. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So who’s not doing their job? 

Mr. HART. Well, this is why we’re asking for FRA to be overseeing this, because there are no similar—there are no analogous 

requirements by the Federal Transit Administration. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let me come back to you at the FTA, because 

you keep coming back and saying, well, Congress can do this and 

Congress can do that. And I appreciate that. I know Secretary Foxx 

well, talked to him just the other day. 

So have you made a request for Congress to actually give you the 

statutory authority that you seek? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes. So we are following up on—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Have you made the request, yes or no? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes, we have. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. To whom? 

Mr. WELBES. Pardon me? 

Mr. MEADOWS. To whom? 

Mr. WELBES. We actually have the authority to issue regulations 

in the area that Mr. Hart is describing. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, then why haven’t you done it? 

Mr. WELBES. We received authority from Congress to do that in 

recent years. We actually have an assignment in the FAST Act 

from one year ago. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But let me just tell you, it is not good enough for 

you to continue—we have derailments and injuries that are happening on a regular basis while you already, as you just testified, 

have the authority to fix it and you’re not fixing it. How many 

more people have to die before we get you to act in the appropriate 

manner? 

Mr. WELBES. Chairman Meadows, the broad framework that 

Congress set forth and our regulatory structure right now has FTA 

holding transit agencies accountable for the standards they have in 

place. So, for example, WMATA’s track maintenance and inspection 

standards are actually more strict for rail track lateral movement 

than the FRA standard. The problem here is that the culture overcomes the rule book in this instance. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you’re going to blame it on Mr. Jackson and 

all his union employees, is that what you’re saying? I’m going to 

get to the bottom of it here. It’s going to end today. I’m tired of the 

double-speak. 

Mr. WELBES. WMATA does—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So is it his fault? 

Mr. WELBES. If WMATA was following its standards, the incident 

should not have occurred. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Whose fault is it? 


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Mr. WELBES. It’s a systematic fault of all the people involved in 

that process. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So you’re involved, so it’s partly your 

fault? 

Mr. WELBES. We are overseeing WMATA—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So it’s partly your fault. 

Mr. WELBES. —to run its operation. Mr. Wiedefeld has been taking steps to make—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, yes or no, do you have any role in the fault 

of injury here, yes or no? 

Mr. WELBES. We take seriously our responsibility—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That’s not the question. Great answer to another 

question I didn’t ask. Are you partially at fault? 

Mr. WELBES. FTA’s lack of authority has been a contributor, yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. You just told me you had the authority. Now, you 

can’t have it both ways. Are you partially at fault? 

Mr. WELBES. Sure, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So when are we going to get it corrected? Because 

let me just tell you, I’m tired of people blaming different people for 

the problem and having hearing after hearing. Mr. Hart has done 

his work. Mr. Wiedefeld is doing his work. We have a union that 

says that they’re willing to give you and participate and I would 

assume even fire some of their own union members. I don’t want 

him to go on record, he may not get reelected if he does, but I assume that they’re willing to do it. 

And yet it keeps coming back to you and your unwillingness to 

get the appropriate people involved in the oversight and management along with the other team. So I want you to report back to 

this committee within 30 days the action plan that you’re going to 

have to address that, to be able to work with the recommendations 

that we just heard, to be able to work with the recommendations 

of Mr. Wiedefeld, Mr. Jackson with the union. Thirty days. Is that 

reasonable? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Now, let me finish with one other aspect. We are here today to get to the bottom of the problem. Mr. 

Jackson, I heard you say that you could come up with a plan to 

fix this, that if they just listened to your union employees that you 

could do that. Now, I’m going to hold you to your word, because 

here’s what I want you to do, is I need you to come back to this 

body within 30 days. I’m going to give you the same time. Is that 

fair, Mr. Jackson? 

Mr. JACKSON. That’s fair. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And I want you to come back with four recommendations on what we could be doing differently. And one of 

those recommendations needs to be what the union could be doing 

differently to actually fix this problem. Are you willing to do that, 

Mr. Jackson? 

Mr. JACKSON. I am most definitely willing to do that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. And my door is open to you, where you 

can come meet with me at any particular time if you believe that 

your union workers are not being heard. I’m willing to listen, because we’re going to fix this problem. 


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Mr. Wiedefeld, I want to say this: You’re making a lot of difficult 

decisions that will make a lot of people angry, and I told you earlier before this that this is not a good career move for you, because 

anything that you do to fix a problem is going to be criticized by 

somebody. But here’s what you do have: You do have a bipartisan 

support with Mr. Connolly and I and others on this committee that 

what we’re willing to do is if you’ll make the tough decisions, we’ll 

ask the tough questions and hold people accountable and make 

sure that we do that. So I want to thank you for your work. 

And I am over time, and so I’ll go to the gentleman and recognize 

him for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Briefly, just a comment. I’d like to yield the balance of my time 

to Mr. Connolly. Fifteen, 20 years ago, I was a local elected official 

in the San Francisco Bay area. I came back here with a then Surface Transportation Policy Project with some members from California to look at WMATA and the land use decisions you were making here as a model for California, where we know in a car culture 

we have to get transit ridership up, and in the Bay area specifically, where BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, doesn’t 

carry nearly the number that you do. It’s still 5 percent of our total 

trips. And when they went out on strike, we saw the implications 

for the region. I think it was $75 million a day that we lost in production. 

So, Mr. Wiedefeld, the challenges you have, as somebody who’s 

believed for over 20 years that as we’ve become more urbanized we 

have to change our land use patterns. You have great examples of 

transit-oriented development that we’ve tried to replicate around 

the country. You are in this conundrum as a retailer where your 

ridership’s going down because of the lack of confidence. You have 

to lay point-of-sale people off and support system. 

How do you get that back? Understanding that safety is first, but 

the retail aspect of you’ve got to get ridership up. And I’ll put this 

in the context of how once you were—how you were perceived once 

around the country and how experience, anecdotal experience. The 

last 2 years, as a Member of Congress, I’ve been looking to purchase a piece of real estate here in the metropolitan area. And I 

looked across the river; I looked on Capitol Hill. And my realtor 

said, you want to be on Capitol Hill, because you can’t trust 

WMATA. If you go across the river, you won’t be able to trust it. 

Well, that contradicts all the planning that you have done, Mr. 

Connolly, local elected officials, that we have replicated in other 

parts of the country, where we want people to be able to live in different areas and help with the cost of housing. 

So long-term, you get the safety problem fixed and the urgency 

of now, but how do you get that confidence back and how quickly 

can you do it so we get transit ridership back up? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Well, we have to focus on, once again, the trains 

running on time. That’s the bottom line, and there’s two elements 

to do that. One is the track. We can’t have issues on the track 

when we have open for revenue service where we have to pull 

trains down because of some issue. And that’s what we’re focussing 

on for 2017, now and into 2017. 


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And the other is the cars. Basically, we have a very old fleet, and 

we’re changing out that fleet. The sooner we get that done, the 

quicker we can get into more reliable service. So that’s the other 

focus for us, because that’s where I have to focus on. The safety has 

to be—obviously goes forward all the time, but we’ve got to get the 

service reliability up, and it’s around tracks and it’s around cars, 

and that is our primary focus for 2017. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Just a comment about FTA and NTSB. And 

Mr. Welbes, I appreciate you at least admitting responsibility, and 

I share the chairman and Mr. Connolly’s frustration. Again, in the 

Bay area, it’s been very hard and frustrating, because I think—this 

is a national problem. We can’t consistently have 5, 10 percent 

transit ridership as the total trips in regions, in metropolitan areas 

in the United States. It won’t work. It doesn’t work. It’s inhibiting 

our economic growth. Los Angeles is making great strides, but 

they’re still 4, 5 percent. 

So whether it’s Congress, whether it’s partnership with you, we 

have to change your role. I have asked the former acting administrator who used to work with me at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, for whom I have much respect, Therese McMillan, can you at least give us guidelines about best practices on our 

budgets, what’s the appropriate—with a range of what we should 

have in operating reserves, capital reserves. How can we help with 

our negotiations to make sure that our employees who live in high 

cost of living areas, like the Bay area, most urban areas, get a fair 

and equitable wage but still maintain the retail and the safety excellence, so you get that ridership back up. 

So as an observation, this is a national problem and I really wish 

that FTA and the administration and the future administration 

would act with Congress in a bipartisan fashion to figure out 

what’s your best possible role, not just when it comes to safety, but 

best practices around finances. 

And, with that, I would like to yield the remaining of my time, 

Mr. Chairman, to Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend. 

Mr. Jackson, over to you, I heard your testimony and it sounded 

good about, you know, commitment to customers and so forth. 

What about ATU and what about the union’s responsibilities, 

though, in terms of accountability? We have a situation—I’m not 

asking you to prejudge it, but, in theory, do you agree that if somebody falsifies records and endangers public safety, their job ought 

to be on the line? I mean, we had the union try to overturn the 

decision made by the general manager when we had an operator 

who blew through a red light, endangering lives. Now, maybe there 

was a good case. I’m all for due process. I’m a Democratic, I support unions. But I also insist there has to be some accountability 

in the workforce and that it’s your job to join with management in 

making sure that the tradeoff is good wages and performance. 

And I want to hear more about that, because I didn’t hear a lot 

of that in your testimony, especially after yesterday’s release of the 

NTSB report on a derailment that involved workers who falsified 

records. 

Mr. JACKSON. Well, Mr. Connolly, I would be more than happy 

to touch on that. 


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Mr. CONNOLLY. I can’t hear you. 

Mr. JACKSON. I would be more than happy to touch on that a little bit for you. As far as workers and the falsification of documents, 

one, you will have to really understand the culture at WMATA. 

If you go to these workers and you are asking these workers 

about these documents, these are the documents. And part of it is 

training and the harassment that the workers receive from the 

managers. Why would a manager give a worker a task that he 

knows is impossible to complete? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Hold on. You’re saying that they falsified the 

records because they were harassed to be able—Mr. Jackson, that’s 

a big leap, because if—I mean, if that’s happening—so you’re saying they falsified the records because someone forced them to falsify them? 

Mr. JACKSON. No. In their mind, they did the work. Let me explain it to you. If you give me a task that takes 45 minutes to complete and I go out there and in my mind I complete that task in 

5 minutes, I went out there and I inspected what you asked me to 

look at, then what you are doing is you are setting me up to fail. 

So now if I go back and I do not finish those 30 inspections that 

you know I have no way of completing, I’m disciplined for not finishing my inspections. So what these guys are doing is they’re 

doing their inspections to a standard—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. And falsifying the records. Mr. Jackson, let me 

just tell you, you’ll find I’ll be your biggest ally, but if they’re falsifying the records, they need to be fired, pure and simple. I mean, 

is there anybody that falsified records that should have been fired? 

Mr. JACKSON. Is there anyone that falsified records that should 

have been fired? Yes, there has been. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you’re going to recommend that to Mr. 

Wiedefeld. 

Mr. JACKSON. I’m never going to recommend it. I’m going to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But you’ll go along with his recommendation on 

firing them. 

Mr. JACKSON. I’m going to recommend that we look into the situation. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That’s not what I asked, Mr. Jackson. You’re 

starting to get contagious. It’s starting to come over here. You’re 

answering a question I didn’t ask. 

Mr. JACKSON. Okay. Well, I’m never going to recommend firing 

our employees. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Will you support the termination of someone 

who’s falsified records that may have caused the injury of someone 

else? 

Mr. JACKSON. If it was their intent to falsify the document, yes, 

I will. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. I’m going to 

recognize the gentlewoman from Virginia, Mrs. Comstock. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to reiterate some of the points that my colleague from Virginia made about the board statements this week really not only 

being troubling but irresponsible. And they were called political 

theatre by our Governor in Virginia, and I would agree with that 

also. 


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But I think this week demonstrates really why we need to have 

major changes at Metro, much like what the Federal City Council 

is recommending. We need to blow up the compact and change it 

quite considerably, make big changes here. We need to get rid of 

the binding arbitration, which is not allowing Mr. Wiedefeld currently to be able to make the changes he needs and put the people 

on task in the way to get the job done, and then we need to change 

the board. 

Mr. Delaney and I have a bill that we have on changing the 

board, but we need to make these decisions so we don’t have this 

type of political theatre. So I hope in the new year with our new 

Transportation Secretary, who not only has a lot of experience in 

transportation but in the Labor Department, that we look at all 

these issues and right-side Metro so we can have this partnership 

that we agree on and support. So I think those were very destructive things that were done, and I was not only very disappointed 

but it only reiterated the need to make some major changes here. 

And on the same front with the union, I’d like to ask Mr. Jackson, is there a Mr. David Stephen that you’re aware of? Is he here 

today with you? 

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, he is. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay, is he here? Could you point him out to 

us? 

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Stephen? 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Yes. 

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Stephen? 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Well, Mr. Stephen is somebody in the 

same line of Mr. Connolly being concerned about the attack on Virginia. He tweeted out recently—and I think he’s been tweeting today’s hearing and making some slights against Chairman Mica— 

Barbara Comstock is our enemy. 

Do you believe that, Mr. Jackson? 

Mr. JACKSON. Ms. Comstock, I believe that we just have a difference of opinion on how this transit system and our binding arbitration should be handled. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Well, let me tell you we have worked, last year 

we’ve worked together on Metro. We got the money restored that 

some on my own side tried to take out. I worked to do that. I have 

been working with my colleagues in the region. I serve on the 

Transportation Committee. When you have that type of mentality—we’ve been working with Mr. Wiedefeld. Their staff has 

been very cooperative. 

And it would be helpful—Mr. Meadows just pointed out on reasons to fire people, and I think Mr. Connolly pointed out too. Here’s 

a headline: ‘‘Metro union sues to get fired worker back on the job 

after the deadly smoke incident.’’ This was another incident where 

falsified reports happened. 

So you’re still pursuing keeping that employee who falsified 

records, you want to keep him employed. 

Mr. JACKSON. So, Mrs. Comstock, what you have to understand 

is that we have what’s known as binding arbitration. And the arbitrator decided that this employee should keep his position at the 

authority. And I believe that even in his findings there was some— 


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there may have been some statements along the lines of it’s the 

culture, the culture at this company. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. And on the culture—and I actually think 

this would be something helpful for all us to do on a bipartisan 

basis—I would like to go out with your track workers, come out 

with you and see what the process is, because I don’t understand. 

It seems like nobody has any records of this. People say there 

aren’t records. You’re making accusations that people are asking 

you to falsify it. 

Is anyone familiar with iPads and phones? Do you have these 

things. Do you have one? 

Mr. JACKSON. We also have a cell phone policy. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Do you all have them? I understand that there’s 

very easy technology where people can come out and record this 

and record what’s going on there. And if you record that, there’s 

timestamps on it. There’s technology that other transit services 

use. They’ve come in and showed us this. 

I think that would protect you and your workers, because it 

would show that you are on site on a particular time doing something, and if somebody said you didn’t you’d have that proof in your 

hands in that report that could never go away. And if we could 

have the track system recorded—and I don’t know what FTA is 

doing. Are you using any type of physical report instead of paper 

reports? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes. We have been recording all of our investigations and inspections. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. We need to have that, so when Mr. Jackson 

makes reports saying they went out to do something and they were 

told to falsify it, this shouldn’t be a back-and-forth of finger-pointing. We should have evidence that shows what happened when you 

went out. We have the technology. This is 2016. This isn’t hard. I 

mean, can somebody—I mean, do you use that at all, Mr. Jackson? 

Mr. JACKSON. We’re not allowed to do that. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. You’re not allowed. Why not? 

Mr. JACKSON. Well, because the Authority has a cell phone policy, an electronic device policy in which—— 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. No, I’m talking about having some type of technological thing that records what you’re doing, not your particular 

phone but technology that would allow you to record that. 

Mr. JACKSON. We are not allowed to have any type of electronic 

device in our work zones. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Well, I understand we don’t want you on the 

phone. I agree with that. 

Mr. JACKSON. Well, any kind of electronic device, meaning any 

type of electronics would be needed to record something. And 

through binding arbitration—— 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Because I’m talking about recording your work, 

recording the work. 

Mr. JACKSON. Recording the work. Again, the workers are not allowed to have any type of electronic device which would even 

record our work. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Well, Mr. Wiedefeld, I think we talked 

about this at the last hearing, because we had people come in with 

that technology to do that. Is that being looked at? 


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Mr. WIEDEFELD. It is, not only for individuals out there but just 

doing it through—by driving over the system and basically recording electronically—— 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Exactly. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. —the conditions of the system. So we’re pursuing that right now. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Because we should be—now, if he’s made 

accusations about this, we should be able to factually pull that up 

and check. I mean, we’re long past having to have this type of finger-pointing when we have the technology. 

I’d also like to take—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Ms. Comstock, your time has expired. We’ll keep 

it for a second round. We’ve got a few other folks that we’ve got 

to go to, but if you’ll stay here we’ll come for a second round. All 

right? 

The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Delaney, is recognized. 

Mr. DELANEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, they say companies go bankrupt two ways: Slowly and 

then all at once. And it seems like the same thing has happened 

to Metro. Across time through your really decades of bad decisions, 

we’ve gotten to the point that everything has collapsed upon itself. 

The difference is, with a company, if it has a reason to exist, it goes 

through a restructuring. It brings in new governance, new management, and it gets new capital, right, and it begins the path of a 

turnaround. 

The problem we have here with Metro is there’s no obvious forcing function to allow that to occur, because it’s not a company, it’s 

a multi-jurisdictional enterprise. The jurisdictions will continue to 

fund it at low levels. It will limp along. It won’t be able to do the 

restructurings it needs to do, and it can’t change the governance 

structure. 

But ultimately, right, cutting through all the stuff we’ve discussed here today, that’s where this has to go. We have to get to 

a point where there’s—actually not a change in management. I 

think the general manager is actually doing a good job. That part 

of the turnaround is occurring. 

But where governance has to change—no disrespect to the current chairman, but the Metro board governance model has failed. 

Where we need new governance, the gentlelady from Virginia and 

I have a proposal to do that, as she mentioned. We need to restructure contracts that don’t work. We need a new strategic plan, and 

we need new money from all the stakeholders, and that has to 

occur in some kind of forcing function where it all kind of is 

brought to the table, and then Metro can—because it clearly has 

a reason to exist. If any enterprise has a reason to exist, it’s the 

Washington Metro. And then the turnaround can continue. 

So my question to the chairman and to the general manager is, 

what can we do to accelerate the occurrence of that day? Because 

that day, which I define as the day when the governance model 

changes, we’re in a position to restructure, and only with those 

things occur will the stakeholders put more money in, and they 

have to put more money in. What can get us to that day as soon 

as possible? Because that’s what’s in the best interest of Metro and 

all the various stakeholders, including the constituencies. 


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Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Congressman Delaney and Congresswoman Comstock. I happen to agree with both of you. And if you 

remember, the original suggestion of getting rid of this board and 

having a five-member board was mine. It drew a lot of fanfare back 

in the day, but now the Federal City Council has adopted that 

model. What their suggestion is is that the Federal Government, 

Congress withdraw its support of the Metro compact. If they were 

to do that, the compact then collapses and all the jurisdictions are 

out and you have to start over again. 

My suggestion is, a 16-member board from all the jurisdictions 

is not workable. I’m doing the best I can with what I have. We’ve 

heard the comments here today. All of us, including myself, end up 

being parochial, because we do. A five-person board like the D.C. 

Control Board of local people, but here’s the catch: It’s not the 

number, although five persons is the best number, with extraordinary powers like you’re talking about. The D.C. Control Board 

had the power to access money from the Treasury. 

Mr. DELANEY. Mr. Chairman, I’ve seen those proposals, and 

whether it’s that or similar flavors. 

Mr. EVANS. Yes, yes, yes. 

Mr. DELANEY. They all involve change of governance, restructuring, and more resources. What can get us to—because now we 

have those proposals floating around out there. 

Mr. EVANS. Yes. 

Mr. DELANEY. And it’s one of these situations, to my mind, any 

of them are better than what we have now. What can get us to that 

day? Because, again, it’s not an enterprise that one day it runs out 

of money and files for bankruptcy. That may be the biggest problem with Metro is that it doesn’t have that forcing—— 

Mr. EVANS. Right, right. 

Mr. DELANEY. What can get us to that day? 

Mr. EVANS. Again, the Federal City Council has that legal outline if Congress withdraws its support from the compact. That will 

be the triggering mechanism that the compact then collapses, and 

everyone is forced at that point to get back together again and restructure the system. And the structure from 40 years ago just 

doesn’t work. Just like the dedicated funding source, that has to be 

a part of it. 

The other five major systems all have a 1 percent sales tax. We 

don’t have it. So all of that has to be, a new board, a new tax, all 

of that, and you can make the system work. 

Mr. DELANEY. Does the general manager have an opinion on is 

this? 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. It is around the compact. I mean, that is I think 

the mechanism to attack this. 

Mr. DELANEY. Okay. I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman? The chair—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Would my friends just yield for one observation? 

Mr. DELANEY. Of course. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. While he still has time. 

It’s complicated. It’s also complicated by the—I find it ironic that 

the District of Columbia that talks about taxation without representation, which I support, would nonetheless favor a system at 


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Metro that would take away representation from the people who 

pay the taxes. In Virginia, it’s localities, not the State, that pays 

the operating subsidy. And you are going to find fierce resistance 

to those taxpayers to lose their representation. 

Mr. DELANEY. I’m reclaiming my time briefly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You don’t have any more time, I took it. I’m just 

teasing. 

Mr. DELANEY. I’m not proposing any specific governance model, 

new governance model. Restructuring, more resources, 50 different 

ways of doing that. That’s where we have to get to. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 

Grothman. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. We’ll go a little different place than we’ve been 

so far. Just a couple months ago, on September 13, there was a 

train that apparently came to a stop outside the Farragut North 

station. Apparently, for a while there was no communication between the operator of that train and the ROCC. 

Mr. Wiedefeld, could you comment on that? Apparently even 

prior to that time there was concern they couldn’t contact the operators. So not only did the train stop, but there was no contact between the operator of that train and the central location. Could you 

tell us a little bit what happened there and whether you think it’s 

appropriate that it happened? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Sure. One of the issueS we have is, once an operator leaves the cab, in effect, there is no communication with the 

remaining six or eight cars and that walkie-talkie. So there were 

some issues around that. And so that is, again, a personnel issue 

that we’re dealing with; did they follow all the rules they were supposed to follow at that time. 

But the reality is, when an incident occurs in a tunnel and if 

there’s only one WMATA employee on it, once they leave that cab, 

in effect, you’ve lost the ability to communicate. You’re walking 

through a very crowded train, depending what the conditions are, 

and you are either talking—we do have megaphones, for instance, 

in the cab that they’re to take to try to help with that communication. But what we have to do is figure out a way to get the ROCC 

to be able to talk to the train where the operator is no longer in 

the cab. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. As I understand it, there was no communication 

between control center and the operator of that train. Is that accurate? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. There was some, but it was not done according 

to the policy that they should have been following. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. There were concerns even before that that 

central felt they weren’t getting a hold of the operator. Is that 

right? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. That’s right. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. But unless we charge ahead—now, you’re 

telling me what happened, the reason there was no communication 

between the operator of the train and the passengers is the operator got up and began walking through the train? Is that—— 


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Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. That’s exactly what they had to do. And 

that’s what they should have been doing. That’s exactly what they 

should have been doing. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. In other words, were they unable to communicate with the passengers otherwise? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. You can communicate with the passengers when 

you’re in a cab, but as you do know, we have problems on that 

issue as well, because if we use different series of cars, when we 

put them together, the communications don’t work. So that’s a 

technical issue that we’re addressing with the 7000 series. But once 

they leave the cab, in effect, all they have now is their walkie-talkie and a megaphone. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. And apparently, because of the lack of communication, some passengers got tired of waiting and began walking 

down the track? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. There was definitely frustration, you know, 

and I think just given the current—some of the current conditions, 

I think that’s what occurred. We obviously do never recommend 

anyone leaving the car. That would be like, you know, if you’re 

frustrated sitting on the tarmac on a plane, you know, sliding down 

the—taking the slide down, that’s just not acceptable. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Kind of a scary thing. Were you aware 

that—was any employee of Metro aware that these passengers 

were walking alone down the tracks? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. And that’s exactly—they were just outside 

the station. Other employees were there and were walking to the 

car, and that’s when they saw these individuals leaving the car. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Was the third rail still on at the time? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes, it was. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Shouldn’t somebody have been hitting the panic 

button, say we better turn this thing off? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Basically, that’s what—they grabbed these people immediately and put them up on the walkway to get them 

away from that. And that’s what caused a lot of the delay, because 

then we had to go, in effect, and inspect around the cars, make 

sure no one else was out there. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Unbelievable, but just like everything else here 

in Washington, why would it work. 

But I’ll give you another question. You guys always say the problem is lack of money, and I know that in any big organization 

today one of the problems we have is health insurance costs. What 

type of health insurance plan do we have for the employees of the 

Metro and what’s the cost per employee per year? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I can get you the details, but the—there’s two 

levels of health care. One is for the nonrepresented employees, 

which is about 2,000 people. And the other is tied to the represented employees, which is about 11,000 people. Eleven thousand 

people is through negotiated settlement in—again, through the 

whole binding arbitration process. The other, we have more control 

over it. Just recently, we’ve reduced the cost of that system by basically charging our employees more for the nonreps. But I’ll have to 

give you details—— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. How many nonrepresented employees do 

you have—— 


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Mr. WIEDEFELD. Two thousand. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Two thousand. So you’ve got a total of 13,000 

people. What is your cost per employee? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I just don’t have that number. I can get it to the 

committee. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you know about? Eighteen thousand a year? 

Seventeen? Twenty-five? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I don’t know. I just don’t know. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Would anybody here know? 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Yeah. If the gentleman would yield, I actually 

have some of those numbers. If you’d like, I could ask about them, 

because I have some. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Sure. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. And I know 75 percent of the cost—70, 75 percent of the cost of Metro is wages and benefits, is my understanding. The information you had given us was that the average 

salary, for example, for controllers, was, over the past few years, 

between $77,000 to $87,000. And I believe the starting base salary 

was 71. Because it would—overtime, and as much overtime—like 

there was one controller who made $216,000 because of overtime. 

In one year, $216,000. This is the information that Metro gave us. 

So there’s a policy where the people, and my understanding is, 

when there’s overtime, the people who have the most seniority— 

and this, again, is in the contract. So the highest salaried employees who maybe are about to retire get the first dibs on the overtime. So they’re able, in your last 3 to 5 years, run up your salary 

so you get a $216,000 salary, and then that overtime is tied to your 

pension. Is that correct? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] The gentleman’s time has expired. 

You can maybe reclaim for one quick question. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right, right, right. The question I had, and I 

don’t know whether any of you people know it, it’s not a matter of 

giving the employees more of the cost of their health insurance, although that’s sometimes necessary. The cost is what type of plan 

do you have? Is it market based or that sort of thing? I would hope 

that one of you up there, one of the four of you, would be able to 

just tell us what is the overall cost per employee, both the employee share and the employer’s share of insurance? I mean, if you 

don’t remember last year’s, maybe you remember a year before 

that. Is it 18? Is it 25? Is it 22? What is it? What do you guys— 

any one of the five of you can tell me. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Wiedefeld, can you get—— 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I can get that to the committee. Yes, I can. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. It’s just amazingly incompetent for none of you 

to have any clue what that is. But it just shows—whatever. I’m 

done with my time. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Wiedefeld, I thank you for being willing to 

get that back to the committee. If you’ll get that response. 

The chair recognizes Mrs. Watson Coleman for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much. 

That was a little concerning to me, that a person with a base sal- ary of 77 to $80,000 a year could have overtime as an operator to 

the tune of—— 


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Mrs. COMSTOCK. A controller. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. —some $200,000 a year. I mean, when 

does that person sleep? That’s a little scary to me. 

Mr. Wiedefeld, I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions because I’d really like to know what you think you need. Do you 

know what you need in order to make this system operate efficiently and effectively and encourage people to use it, because I 

think public transportation is vitally important to our environment 

as well as just to our lifestyles. So do you have a comprehensive 

plan that lays out all of the things that you need to do with your 

cars, your tracks, your electrical, your whatever? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. We do, in fact, on all those levels. Both on the 

track and on the cars is our biggest focus for this one year, but we 

have it for our busses. We have it for our paratransit service. A big 

part of it is working closer, I believe, with the union employees and 

getting to some of those core issues. I agree with that as well. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So there is a plan that goes for, what, 

five years, ten years? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yeah, we have an overall plan. But I’m focusing 

particularly on the ’17—you know, remainder of this year and ’17 

to get at some of the core issues that we have to address immediately. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Okay. But to get the system in good repair, you have a longer term plan. Right? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. We do. Yes, we do. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So do you anticipate a certain amount 

of money that you need in order to accomplish this, both long term 

and then incrementally to get to that long term? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yes. We have a program for the next 6 years for 

both operating and capital of what we would recommend. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. And do you have what you need? Or is 

there a running deficit—— 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. No. We have a deficit on the operating budget in the upcoming year of $290 million. Obviously, we have to have 

a balanced budget, so I proposed a certain way to get there that 

the board is considering right now. On the capital side, like any 

other major infrastructure, the capital needs are always much larger than what we have available. We’ve identified a total need of 

$25 billion. But that is—you know, we have a capital program that 

we’re proposing of $7.2 billion over the next 6 years to chip away 

at those issues. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So that if you have a—7 times 6 is 

what? 56? You have a $7 billion plan per year—— 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Every 6 years. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. —for 6 years? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. For 6 years. Over 6 years. It’s roughly about 1.2, 

1.3 annually. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Okay. So what do you—what’s going to 

be your deficit there? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. We’re going to have a deficit on the operating 

side of the equation. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Not on the—— 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Well, the capital side is—again, you always 

have more capital needs than you can afford. 


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Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Yeah. But we’re really focusing on the 

fact that your infrastructure hasn’t held up the way it should and 

there, therefore, have been serious injuries and loss of life and 

things of that nature. So that’s where I’m trying to focus right now 

on—— 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Right. Right. And we believe, for the upcoming 

year, that we have enough dollars to, again, move in that direction 

to bring the entire system to what we call a state of good repair, 

to get it to a base level. Not expansion, but basically gives you that 

base level. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Okay. All right. I don’t think I really 

know the answer to my question. But I’m going to yield my time 

to my very eager colleague here. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend. 

Mr. Wiedefeld, Mr. Evans talked about utilization and cost and 

loss on a certain line in the system. Do you maintain an actual 

cost, loss, or revenue gain for each station or each line of the system? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. No. What we do is, you know, we manage this 

as a regional system. And that’s the way we look at it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, how is he able to desegregate the Silver 

Line from everything else and declare that it’s going to cost something projected into the future? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I don’t know what numbers that were thrown 

around. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, let me just ask this: If we’re going to go 

down that road, this committee, with the permission of the subcommittee chairman, wants to see data on every line and every station. And if we’re going to start talking about closing things based 

on gain or loss, we’re all ears. We’re all eyes. And we’ll be participants in that, I assure you. So we want to see that data. Since it 

got brought up, why pick on only just one part of the system. 

Secondly, Mr. Evans, you were talking interestingly on the board 

about the affluence of certain members of the compact, certain 

parts of the compact. In fact, you made reference to jurisdictions 

I represent in terms of their median household income. Was that 

a predicate to maybe changing how we finance the operating subsidy based on median household income and an ability to pay rather than utilization or physical presence of Metro in a jurisdiction? 

Mr. EVANS. Mr. Connolly, all of my comments are directed at getting the attention of Maryland and Virginia that we need a dedicated funding source. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But why would you pick on the measure on median household income and affluence? What was the relevance of 

that? 

Mr. EVANS. What I was saying is Fairfax County is the second 

richest county in America and Arlington’s the sixth richest county 

in America, and yet we cannot get a dedicated funding source for 

Metro. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yeah. And this goes back to why I think your 

comments about the Silver Line are reckless. So let’s take Fairfax 

County, which I’ve represented for a long time. It’s 400 square 

miles. How big is your jurisdiction? 

Mr. EVANS. 62. 


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Mr. CONNOLLY. How many stations you got? 

Mr. EVANS. How many? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Stations. Metro stations. 

Mr. EVANS. 40. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Forty in 62 square miles. If you take out the Silver Line, Fairfax has four, and if you’re generous with Falls 

Church, five in 400 square miles, Mr. Evans. It’s a very difficult 

task persuading our taxpayers to increase their subsidy, let alone 

vote for a dedicated source of revenue, if they’re not served by 

Metro. And that was the genius of the Silver Line, to finally get 

service to the Nation’s premier international airport, which is a 

Federal responsibility we’re bearing. And, secondly, to anchor the 

largest jurisdiction and the wealthiest jurisdiction as a stakeholder 

in Metro. I urge you to contemplate that next time you decide to 

opine about the relevance of Metro in my jurisdiction. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Wiedefeld, first of all, I want to thank you again for—as 

we—many have done today, for making the hard decisions. You 

know, John Kennedy said that to govern is to choose. And you 

clearly have made these choices. 

You weren’t able to address in your spoken testimony, but in 

your extended written testimony you talked about the speed restrictions outside National Airport. And many of my constituents 

who regularly use the Yellow and the Blue Lines question why the 

speed restrictions are in place so soon after the SafeTrack work has 

been completed. Can you explain when those will go away or why 

they’re still there? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Sure. Sure. The speed restriction had nothing to 

do with the condition of the track. It had to do with a near miss 

out there. We have certain parts of the system where we have very 

tight curves. And that one happens—actually is an ess curve. And 

that—so we wanted to reduce the speed. There was actually a line 

of sight issue. We worked with the National Park Service to remove a tree to do that so we could start to bring that speed back 

up. 

And then what we’re doing is we’re instituting a electronic technology so that when workers are out in one of those blind curves, 

in effect, they are alerted that a train is coming. And more importantly, that the operator knows that someone’s in front of them. 

And then once we have that in place, then we can bring speeds 

back up. But when someone’s out there, we just want to make sure 

that they’re not in danger. 

Mr. BEYER. Okay. Thank you. You know, much has been made 

about the culture, state of the culture at WMATA. And this is the 

hardest thing to change and the most important thing. How long 

do you think it’s going to take? What are your steps to change the 

culture? And I can ask Mr. Jackson this too. Do you see the union 

as a willing partner in this culture evolution? 

Mr. JACKSON. I do see the union as a willing partner with this 

culture evolution. I would just ask to go look at the union’s statements over the last few years. We’ve been asking for this, I believe, 

since 2009, or maybe even before then. I do know that during the— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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I can’t remember the year and the guy’s name right now. But he 

came with Kubicek and the rest of them. We have been saying this 

for a while that the Authority have a serious culture problem. We 

have a very serious culture problem and something needs to be 

done. It can’t get done by management disciplining their way out 

of this safety culture problem that we have. You can’t discipline 

your way to safety. But if we sit down, the union and management 

come together, I believe that we can fix this problem. I mean, and 

in my professional opinion, I don’t even believe we need the FTA 

to do it. All we need is the training. 

Mr. BEYER. Let me ask the general manager the same question 

about culture, difficulty, time, and willing partners. 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. Yeah. I know we have willing partners. I’ve met 

with hundreds if not thousands of our employees. And basically, 

they’ve very proud and they—a lot of the things that you’re starting to see now is the result of the safety culture taking root. So, 

for instance, about 3 weeks ago or so we had an issue with the 

4000 series. That was raised by a middle manager person that basically said: Wait a minute. There’s an issue here. And we pulled 

those cars out of the lead on the trains. 

A lot of the other speed restrictions, you mention one, but there’s 

a number of speed restrictions that have been occurring over the 

last few months. That’s coming from line employees. And that’s exactly where it should come and that’s what we want to promote. 

But I do believe with Mr. Jackson, there has been a culture here 

over decades that has evolved. And I’m not going to turn it around 

in months. But I think it’s going to—a concerted effort by management and labor to do that. 

Mr. BEYER. Great. Thank you. 

Chairman Evans—— 

Mr. EVANS. Yes. 

Mr. BEYER. —we’ve given you a hard time today because of your 

comments about warning the Blue Line to be closed for 6 months 

or that you cut suburban Metrorail service so Virginia, Maryland 

can contribute more money. In November, you floated the idea of 

a Federal takeover of WMATA. And just last week, this notion of 

not continuing Silver Line phase two, even though Virginia’s paying to construct it. 

I know you’re working very hard and very passionately about 

dedicated sources of revenue and all that. But how do you respond 

to all these statements which seem to deepen the parochial divides 

and perhaps further undermining rider confidence in our system? 

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Congressman. Actually, I think—and you 

take those statements one by one. What I found when I came to 

Metro and became chairman is a lack of awareness—because of 

Metro’s fault. Nobody’s else’s fault—in this whole region of how bad 

this situation was. On the operation side, as was pointed out by I 

believe Chairman Mica, we had just celebrated Richard Sarles’ 

leaving as one of the great times in Metro. And the whole thing 

was a wreck and nobody knew it. The finances, when I walked in 

there, I couldn’t believe what I found. We hadn’t had a clean audit 

in 3 years. Everything was in chaos. 

What I’ve tried to do in the last year is to raise the awareness 

of the region starting out with close the Blue Line for 6 months. 


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We needed to do something to fix these lines. Paul’s SafeTrack program is a followup on just that statement. The idea of a control 

board for Metro. It’s been adopted by the Federal City Council. So 

all of these statements which were inflammatory at the time actually turned—proved out to be what Metro needs. And I have to say, 

Mr. Congressman, we’re not even close to fixing this thing. There 

is a lot that needs to be done. But I will say this: We are light 

years ahead of where we were a year ago at this time. Enormous 

progress has been made. 

Mr. BEYER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. 

Maloney, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, it’s good to hear that some progress has 

been made. But I want to look more closely at the capabilities of 

the Federal Transit Administration and what it brings to its role 

as the entity with responsibility for oversight and safety at Metro. 

So I’d like to begin with Mr. Welbes. How many safety inspectors 

does FTA currently have? 

Mr. WELBES. So we have a team of 10 people working on our 

safety inspection. We have 24 people total who are involved in 

WMATA inspections and oversight right now. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So 10 people. And 24, what are the 24? Are they 

on detail from other agencies? 

Mr. WELBES. There’s a combination of 13 FTA employees. We 

also have some contractor employees. We also have some detailees 

from the Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Motor 

Carrier Administration. 

Mrs. MALONEY. How many detailees do you have? 

Mr. WELBES. I can report that back to you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And do you have any contractors who help perform FTA safety inspection responsibilities? And if so, how many? 

Mr. WELBES. I will provide that to you for the record. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. 

And Chairman Hart, for the purposes of comparison, how many 

rail inspectors does the Federal Railroad Administration have? 

Mr. HART. I’m sorry, I do not have that number. I have to get 

back to you with that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. Great. 

And, Mr. Welbes, when FTA conducts its oversight duties, does 

it have Federal regulations to refer to or does it regulate Metro 

based on the standards that Metro has established for itself? 

Mr. WELBES. So at this time, we enforce Metro standards. We 

hold Metro accountable to carry out its standards. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Its standards. Okay. And is FTA working on a 

rulemaking regarding Federal standards for transit operation? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes, we are. 

Mrs. MALONEY. That’s good to hear. And what is the status of 

that rulemaking? 

Mr. WELBES. So in this past year, we’ve issued four safety regulations: One related to State safety oversight; one related to bus 

testing; another one that is our national safety program, which is 

the overall framework for FTA carrying out the new authority that 


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Congress gave it recently. And then in the coming months on—we 

have two more regulations we are issuing. One is the Public Transportation Agency safety regulation and a safety certification training regulation that’s also ready for issuance. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And, Chairman Hart, for the purposes of comparison about FRA, does it hold the railroads it regulates to established Federal rules or to the standards that the railroads establish 

for themselves? 

Mr. HART. Well, let me—there’s a clarification I think that’s warranted here. Our understanding is that what the Federal Transit 

Administration is putting out is not regulations but voluntary safety standards. The FRA puts out regulations, which means you 

must do this or you cannot do that. So I think there is a large distinction there between the two activities. And I’m not sure that 

under the circumstances where FTA is intending to be a temporary 

body, I’m not sure under those circumstances they would be eager 

to create an entire infrastructure with regulations and inspections—inspectors to find out if the regulations are being followed. 

They’re trying to see the States take this function over sooner rather than later. So I’m not confident that they would ever want to 

create that infrastructure that we think is necessary that the FRA 

already has. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you agree with that analysis, Mr. Welbes? 

Just voluntary, not a real regulation? 

Mr. WELBES. In the future, our intent is that there will be certain mandatory standards. There will be also voluntary industry 

standards that agencies will follow. It’ll be a combination. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, certainly with Homeland Security, do you 

have standards in Homeland Security that are Federal? 

Mr. WELBES. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. You do. 

I want to look at FTA’s day-to-day oversight of Metro. Mr. 

Welbes, how many FTA inspectors are assigned to oversee safety 

at Metro? 

Mr. WELBES. So we have, as I noted, a team of 24 people total 

in our Washington Metro safety office which we established a year 

ago. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. And do FTA inspectors produce regular reports on their findings at Metro for review by senior officials? And 

how often are these reports produced? Who reviews them? And has 

FTA ordered any specific changes in Metro’s operations to respond 

to findings that have been identified by these inspectors? 

Mr. WELBES. We have. We’ve done two things. We’ve done targeted investigations of key problem areas. For example, red signal 

overruns, track maintenance. And then we also have conducted 

day-to-day inspections. So we’ve conducted over 300 daily inspections. And they’ve resulted, as Mr. Wiedefeld will know, in—I believe on the investigation side, 251 specific corrective actions that 

WMATA’s supposed to carry out. And of those, some of them are 

ones we brought forward that had been assigned by the State safety oversight agency. About half of them are ones we’ve identified 

during the past year. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My time has expired. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentlewoman. 


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The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Virginia for a very 

quick 1–1/2 minutes since they’ve called votes. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. How many people—actually, I wanted— 

the information you provided with us earlier is that there are 5— 

about 5,000 employees in the transit infrastructure and engineering services that ties department of Metro. And my understanding 

is that—that comparable transit networks have about 19 of those 

employees per track mile and Metro has 42, according to those statistics. Would that be correct? 

Mr. WIEDEFELD. I don’t know. I would have to look at that. I just 

don’t know. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Could we get that information? Because 

I think what we really need to have and what we haven’t been able 

to get is how do we—I know you’ve said we’re doing—it’s costing 

more and we’re doing less. And we need to get comparable data. 

And I know Mr. Evans has said to me in private meetings that the 

contract is unsustainable, and having $100,000 bus drivers or 

$216,000 controllers are a very difficult thing. I’m sure your teachers in D.C. don’t make $216,000. My husband is a teacher—was a 

teacher in Fairfax County. I can assure you, did not make that. 

Does not make $100,000, our teachers don’t in Fairfax. So this 

wealthy county that has been referenced, their teachers, their firefighters, their police are not making $216,000 or $100,000. And 

these are people who often have graduate degrees and others. So 

I’d like to get that comparable data, and we need to have that. 

But I’d also like to—given Mr. Jackson’s comments today saying 

that people are forcing them to falsify things, those are very serious charges. And I think we need names and information on that. 

And you very factually stated that. So I would hope you would 

present us with facts that back that up. You are here under oath 

today. And I think it’s incumbent if you have employees—because, 

you know, if your employees are being exploited like this, we need 

to have that information. So I would ask you to provide us names 

and places and incidents, and go back to your employees and give 

us that information. 

And then I’d like to make my request again, and I hope you 

would be able to take us sort of on a tour, so we understand when 

your employees are called to do these—whether it’s 42 per mile and 

what—and I should also point out that these are people who—from 

the APTA data that we have, compared to what Metro is paid, your 

workers are paid considerably higher—you are aware of that, Mr. 

Jackson, right—than the average? 

Mr. JACKSON. I know that what our workers make were—their 

salaries were negotiated with WMATA. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. I understand they were negotiated. But, for example, the track workers who with their benefits make $55 an 

hour is comparable to the average of $30 an hour. The wage an 

hour rate is $36, then benefits are $17. The Davis-Bacon track laborer makes $23 and then $7 with fringe benefits for $30. So your 

employees are paid more—considerably higher than Davis-Bacon 

and higher than the national average. Would you agree? 

Mr. JACKSON. Well, I will agree that our employees also have to 

go behind those same contractors and redo the work that they have 

done. 


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Mrs. COMSTOCK. Well, so you’re saying even though you have 42 

miles—workers per track and as opposed to 19, you still aren’t able 

to—and you’re paid more. So my—I mean, from—I’m looking at the 

data that Metro gave me. These employees are paid more and 

there’s more of them than the average. And yet you’re not acknowledging that? 

Mr. JACKSON. Well, are you asking for the quality of the work? 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. No. I’m asking for the salaries. So maybe if you 

could provide me, your union, with that—I mean, I know your 

union’s under investigation right now by the Labor Department. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. JACKSON. We are not under investigation by the Labor Department. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Well, they’ve sued about the—the election 

wasn’t properly held. Is that correct? 

Mr. JACKSON. Yes. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. But do you have somebody who could provide us 

with the information on the salaries and all that that—because 

you’ve made claims that you’re paid, I think publicly outside of this 

hearing, that you aren’t paid more than the average and that 

there’s some—and you’re asking for considerable salary increases, 

is that correct, in your current negotiations? 

Mr. JACKSON. We’re in contract negotiations now. And that’s 

what they are. They are negotiations. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. So for this 55—$53 an hour, you’re asking for more. 

Mr. JACKSON. We’re asking for more. The Authority is also asking for more. So that’s why it’s called negotiations. We will negotiate with the Authority, and we will come up with something that 

I believe will be fair for everybody. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Well, I think again I would reiterate, 

that’s why the Federal City Council has pointed out this is 

unsustainable given the costs that are not comparable to the national rates and why we need to get rid of this existing compact 

and the binding arbitration that makes it impossible for the leadership here to really implement what you’re asking them to implement. 

I thank the Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. [Presiding.] I thank the gentlelady. I thank our witnesses. We do have an opportunity to make Metro great again. I 

think this panel is in very good hands. Some of you may wish one 

of these days that Congressman Mica was back chairing these 

hearings. 

There being no further business before the committee and the 

dual subcommittees, Government Operations and Transportation 

Oversight, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:28 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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