U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

75–013 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

EXAMINING METRO’S TRACK RECORD: AN OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES FACING THE WASHINGTON

METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

OCTOBER 6, 2000

Serial No. 106–275

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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http://www.house.gov/reform

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Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

HOWIE DENIS, Professional Staff Member

VICTORIA PROCTOR, Professional Staff Member

JENNY MAYER, Clerk

JON BOUKER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on October 6, 2000 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Fernandez, Nuria, Acting Administrator, Federal Transit Administration,

U.S. Department of Transportation; Gladys W. Mack, chairman, board

of directors, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; Decatur

Trotter, vice chairman, board of directors, Washington Metropolitan

Area Transit Authority; Christopher Zimmerman, second vice chairman, board of directors, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; Richard White, general manager and chief executive officer, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; Ron Tober, chairman,

American Public Transportation Association; Dorothy Dugger, deputy

general manager, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART];

Kathy Porter, transportation planning board, Metropolitan Washington

Council of Governments; and Michael Carvalho, Transportation and

Environment Committee, Greater Washington Board of Trade ............... 12

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Carvalho, Michael, Transportation and Environment Committee, Greater

Washington Board of Trade, prepared statement of .................................. 149

Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 4

Dugger, Dorothy, deputy general manager, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid

Transit [BART], prepared statement of ...................................................... 120

Fernandez, Nuria, Acting Administrator, Federal Transit Administration,

U.S. Department of Transportation, prepared statement of ..................... 15

Mack, Gladys W., chairman, board of directors, Washington Metropolitan

Area Transit Authority, prepared statement of ......................................... 43

Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 170

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the District

of Columbia, prepared statement of ............................................................ 10

Porter, Kathy, transportation planning board, Metropolitan Washington

Council of Governments, prepared statement of ........................................ 140

Tober, Ron, chairman, American Public Transportation Association, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 29

White, Richard, general manager and chief executive officer, Washington

Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, prepared statement of .................. 66

(1)

EXAMINING METRO’S TRACK RECORD: AN

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE CHALLENGES

AND OPPORTUNITIES FACING THE WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in room

2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas M. Davis

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis and Norton.

Staff present: Howie Denis and Victoria Proctor, professional

staff members; David Marin, communications director/counsel; Melissa Wojciak, staff director; Jenny Mayer, clerk; Jon Bouker, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. DAVIS. Good afternoon. Apologize for the cramped quarters.

But we would not have the other hearing room available for probably another half hour to an hour. We wanted to get this moving

in a timely manner. We may have a vote in the middle of this. I

will have to go over and vote. Ms. Norton will be taking the Chair

at that point. She has committed to me she’ll not in my absence,

running the committee, she won’t bring up D.C. statehood. So with

that understanding—usually unprecedented to do, but we have a

very good relationship on this. We want to get all the testimony in

and get to the questions and try to make this an informative hearing for all concerned.

Today’s oversight hearing will focus on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Over the past 25 years WMATA

has built a sterling mass transit system with an international reputation for efficiency and safety that has proven to be a model for

the rest of the country. As chairman of the Fairfax County Board

of Supervisors and now as a Congressman it’s been a great pleasure to work with Metro. I know from my experience that Metro officials work hard to provide reliable service to meet the needs of its

riders.

Let me just add I had a conversation with Carlton Sickles, who

is here in the audience, one of the architects of the Metro system

early on and one of its first board members. And Mr. Sickles, thank

you for being with us in attendance today as well.

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Recently it’s been tough to avoid the media reports about the

various problems plaguing the safety and reliability of WMATA’s

transit services. This summer alone has seen a flurry of incidents

which have inconvenienced passengers and in some cases even

frightened them. There has been slow progress repairing escalators, persistent overcrowding on buses and trains, and fires in

Metro tunnels. And then in July we heard about the fiasco which

ensued during morning rush hour when a train stopped for 15 minutes just outside the Farragut North station with a brake problem.

Four cars were still in the tunnel and the passengers remained in

the cramped cars without air conditioning. There was no communication with the passengers to let them know the reason for the

delay and the train operator was unreachable through the intercom. The mishandling of the July tunnel incident could have resulted in a serious injury to passengers.

So the subcommittee is interested in examining the mechanisms

that WMATA is implementing in order to create or augment training for Metrorail operators and increase communication with passengers when emergencies like this occur. Passengers who were on

the train contacted us to describe their experiences and made clear

that incidents like this shatter the public confidence in the transit

system.

Now, there is no question that Metro has enacted several significant measures to address these problems. In particular, it has

begun a $233 million capital improvement program for fiscal 2000

aimed at preserving the system and upgrading various facilities.

Additionally it recently announced planned improvements within

60 days to provide better training to employees on more effectively

communicating with the customers about transit outages, and it

announced a revised schedule for accelerated repairs of the Metro

escalators.

Metro’s board has also approved the opening of the Green Line

extension to Branch Avenue on January 13th, 2 months ahead of

schedule. Today WMATA’s rail service alone is among the Nation’s

largest systems in terms of its annual passenger trips, second only

to New York City’s subway system. Its Metrobus service ranks

sixth nationally.

As we all know, the economy in the Washington area is booming.

High tech companies in particular are attracted to this area. With

this kind of rapid economic development and population increase,

the Washington area’s reliance on Metro will only continue to grow

in the coming years. In fact, Metro’s ridership is expected to increase by as much as 50 percent over the next 20 years. Therefore,

renovation and expansion of the system are critical to Metro’s future and its ability to accommodate customer demand.

While many problems may be the result of growing pains, others

highlight the need for improved communication and infrastructure.

The positive steps that WMATA has taken so far has increased

customer loyalty and better serve the region. However, the subcommittee remains concerned that WMATA faces persistent systematic problems that will hinder its expansion and progress, and

therefore we want to examine these issues a little further.

We are going to hear from representatives of WMATA to discuss

the challenges it faces in providing adequate, safe, secure, reliable

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and customer friendly transportation services to citizens in the region. We’ll also hear from representatives of BART in San Francisco and the Miami-Dade transit system to help us gauge how

WMATA’s organization and business practices compare with other

large transit agencies nationwide.

The subcommittee also expects to hear from the witnesses about

the extent to which WMATA faces unique challenges because of its

relationship to the Federal, two States and the local governments

that influence its operation and decisionmaking authority, how

WMATA funds its operations in capital investments and how

WMATA measures its performance in key areas and how it develops its performance standards and how WMATA gauges customer

satisfaction.

Unfortunately Mr. Danny Alvarez, the Director of the MiamiDade transit is unavailable to testify before the subcommittee

today. A state of emergency has been declared in Miami-Dade

County because of the heavy flooding that resulted from severe

storms in southern Florida this week. Mr. Alvarez is part of the

county’s emergency response team. He’s responsible for coordinating all emergency logistical transportation operations. Mr. Alvarez

sent me a letter to that effect. I will enter it into the record. I think

I can speak on behalf of all the subcommittee members when I extend my support to Mr. Alvarez as he works to successfully manage

the crisis facing the county.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas M. Davis follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. I will now yield to our ranking member, Ms. Norton,

for any opening comments she has before we allow our witnesses

to testify and go to questions.

Ms. NORTON. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate

your leadership in calling this hearing today. This region of the

country is increasingly dependent, and I use that word in the best

sense, on rapid transit, both bus and subway. And I would like to

see us even more dependent on WMATA than we are today. It

seems to me not only the preferred methods of travel in this region

and in this country, it is fast becoming in this congested region the

only method of travel with any hope for getting people home in the

same day in which they started.

The Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority’s excellent reputation has been tarnished by recent events related to public safety. The most serious are fire related, especially in Metro tunnels.

Nearly 600,000 D.C. and regional residents and tourists use Metro

each day, second in passenger trips only to New York City. Thus,

failures in the system not only endanger riders but the regional

economy as well.

In 25 years of operation Metro’s record of safety and reliability

has not generally been a cause of concern. However, an apparent

trend of increases in reports of fires began in November 1999 when

four, or twice the usual number of one or two of the preceding

months were reported, rising again to February 6th to three times

that number, and culminating in a high of 13 in June.

We now see a more hopeful downward trend. Beginning in July,

there were five incidents, in August three and in September two.

I cannot imagine anything more frightening than to be caught in

a stalled and crowded subway, particularly if there is smoke, with

no communication. That sounds like a plot for an urban horror

movie.

There have been some indications that the spike in stops and reported fires may have constituted an overreaction to bad press and

public concern rather than to danger from fire and smoke. Even if

so, that would raise questions about the quality of management response to change and crisis within the organization. There are undoubtedly many causes. Training and communication both internally and with the public are clearly deeply implicated. I do not accept that capital improvements and upgrading of facilities may be

a cause. A public carrier has to provide public safety under all circumstances or ‘‘res ipsa loquitor,’’ as we say in the law.

The reported incidents do a disservice to a long record of reliability. Metro deserves credit for how it has raised ridership on buses

and subways within innovations that break through the conventional wisdom. This is no time to countermand hopeful management improvements in ridership with discouraging management

deficiencies and safety and reliability.

This hearing should be regarded as an important part of Metro’s

own effort to regain the full confidence of the public it has traditionally enjoyed. Only with a thorough airing of the current problems and the proposed solutions can the public be reassured. We

offer that opportunity to today’s witnesses and look forward to

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hearing from each of them.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. I now call our witnesses and supporting witnesses to

testify: Ms. Nuria Fernandez, the Acting Administrator, Federal

Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation; Ms.

Gladys Mack, the chairman of the Board of Directors of WMATA;

Mr. Richard White, the general manager and chief executive officer

of WMATA; Mr. Ron Tober, chairman of the American Public

Transportation Association; Ms. Dorothy Dugger, deputy general

manager, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART], the Honorable Kathy Porter, Transportation Planning Board, Metropolitan

Washington Council of Governments; Mr. Michael Carvalho, the

Transportation Environmental Committee, Greater Washington

Board of Trade; the Honorable Decatur Trotter, vice chairman,

Board of Directors, WMATA; and the Honorable Chris Zimmerman,

the second vice chairman, Board of Directors, WMATA.

As you know, it’s the policy of this committee that all witnesses

and supporting witnesses be sworn before they testify. If you would

rise with me and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. We’re going to start, Ms. Fernandez, with you and

then I understand, Mr. Tober, you have to catch a plane. We’ll proceed to you and then go down the line back to Ms. Mack.

STATEMENTS OF NURIA FERNANDEZ, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; GLADYS W. MACK, CHAIRMAN,

BOARD OF DIRECTORS, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA

TRANSIT AUTHORITY; DECATUR TROTTER, VICE CHAIRMAN,

BOARD OF DIRECTORS, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA

TRANSIT AUTHORITY; CHRISTOPHER ZIMMERMAN, SECOND

VICE CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY; RICHARD WHITE,

GENERAL MANAGER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,

WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY;

RON TOBER, CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION; DOROTHY DUGGER, DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER, SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT

[BART]; KATHY PORTER, TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

BOARD, METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS; AND MICHAEL CARVALHO, TRANSPORTATION

AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE, GREATER WASHINGTON

BOARD OF TRADE

Ms. FERNANDEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good

afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. It is

with great pleasure that I come before you today to discuss the

challenges facing the Nation’s transit providers as they strive to

deliver a safe, reliable and efficient service to their customers.

This is a significant moment in the history of the Federal mass

transit assistance program. Over the past several years the Congress has provided transit industry with unprecedented levels of

Federal assistance. Last year alone for the first time since the beginning of the Federal transit assistance program under President

Kennedy transit ridership in the United States exceeded 9 billion

trips, and based on recent reports, transit patronage is up by 4.3

percent compared to the same period last year.

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These ridership gains are the result of a strong national economy

that has put a greater demand on transportation in general and

transit in particular. These gains are also due to the very hard

work by transit managers and employees and by the investment of

substantial financial resources from local and State governments

with considerable Federal assistance. As good as all this is, however, more needs to be done around the Nation as well as here in

Washington. The greatest challenge facing transit industries all

across the country is securing the resources to meet the increasing

demands for transit services for their communities and to assure

that the current transit infrastructure is able to accept the added

stress on its assets.

Our recent report to Congress on the conditions and performance

of the Nation’s surface transportation systems noted that record

levels of highway and transit investments have greatly improved

transportation safety and enhanced system conditions. Still further

progress is necessary for this new century to keep up with the rehabilitation and replacement of existing transit infrastructure to

maintain its state of good repair.

All across the Nation, communities have closed the gap between

their needs and availability of funds by taking full advantage of the

flexibility that was in ISTEA and now provided in TEA–21 in using

other surface transportation funds for locally determined priorities.

I am pleased to note, Mr. Chairman, that nationally over $1.6 billion was flexed in fiscal year 2000 with over $6 billion flexed since

start of ISTEA from the Federal Highway Congestion Mitigation

Air Quality and Surface Transportation programs to transit systems across the Nation. In fact, WMATA has received about $13

million in flex funding in fiscal year 2000.

Similarly, Congress has provided a range of innovative financing

tools which several of our Nation’s transit providers are taking advantage of in order to meet their needs for infrastructure financing.

Earlier this year WMATA was the first agency to receive a loan

guarantee of $600 million for the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act [TIFIA]. This loan guarantee is intended

to assist and expedite WMATA’s rehabilitation program.

As important as the Federal assistance is, it is at the local level

where the key decisions concerning how to develop and fund local

transit operations are made. The most important thing for transit

agencies to accomplish in order to meet these challenges is to assure stable and reliable State and local sources of funding for capital and operating needs. The best agencies start with a firm idea

of their goals and future plans. They make realistic estimates of

the costs to meet these needs and develop an aggressive multifaceted approach with local and State decisionmakers and the business community to generate the necessary resources.

Based on data that was reported by all mass transit systems, the

larger transit agencies typically have dedicated revenue sources of

funds for their capital and operating needs. For example, Los Angeles County Metro and the Chicago Transit Authority have a dedicated sales tax, Atlanta has a dedicated income tax, and Portland

has a dedicated payroll tax. These dedicated sources give a great

degree of predictability to their ability to implement their programs

and satisfy their infrastructure needs.

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The committee has also demonstrated an interest in FTA’s oversight of transit agencies. In my written statement I go into a great

level of detail on our activities, including the recent procurement

systems review of Washington Metro. As the GAO testified before

Congress, FTA has improved the quality of its Federal oversight

programs since 1992, when the program was placed on GAO’s high

risk list. FTA came off the list in February 1995, and we have

issued guidance for transit financial compliance based on their recommendations.

Coming back to WMATA, WMATA is experiencing the very same

challenge faced by all of our grantees serving major metropolitan

areas, such as increased demand for transit due to a strong economy, the need to keep pace with their infrastructure, maintenance

and rehabilitation programs, and striking a balance in the allocation of local resources to fund the construction of new corridors

without affecting the ability to deliver current service.

I want to thank the subcommittee again for the opportunity to

be here today to discuss the state of transit nationally and how

Washington Metro fits into this picture. We know that this committee and Congress have shown an interest in ensuring that the public dollars used to finance mass transportation systems result in a

cleaner, safer, reliable and timely service to all of its customers,

and I look forward to working with this committee to ensure that

the Federal resources provided achieve the intended benefits.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Fernandez follows:]

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Ms. NORTON [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Fernandez.

Mr. Tober.

Mr. TOBER. Thank you, Madam Congresswoman. Good afternoon,

Madam chairman and the members of the subcommittee. The

American Public Transportation Association appreciates the opportunity to testify on the challenges facing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and other public transportation systems. My name is Ron Tober. I am chair and chief executive officer

of the Charlotte Area Transit System, and I have worked for a

number of other transit agencies during my 31-year career.

The detailed written statement has been submitted by APTA for

the record and I will briefly cover its main points for you here

today. Before discussing WMATA, let me talk about transit generally and the major challenges that we face. Quite simply, more

and more people are choosing to use public transportation. We

closed the millennium by breaking the 9 billion passenger mark for

the first time in 40 years. Over the last 4 years transit ridership

in the United States has grown by 15 percent, and public transportation generates a real return on the Federal, State and local investment. In addition to the 300,000 people employed directly by

the $26 billion a year public transportation industry, thousands of

others are employed in the business sector that depend upon transit investment for their livelihood.

Transit removes vehicles from traffic, saving time for both transit

and highway users. This helps increase productivity and stimulates

the economy. Traffic congestion has reached epidemic proportions,

but as bad as it is, imagine what it would be like without public

transportation. Regions like Washington, DC, would require nearly

300,000 more cars on their roadways if transit was not in operation

in this area.

Transportation experts, however, agree that our capital investments have not kept pace with the annual $16 billion in transit

capital needs that are present in this country. In order to provide

alternatives to traffic congestion, it is critical to invest in all forms

of surface transportation, including public transportation.

Let me now turn to WMATA, which is an active APTA member

organization. The challenges faced by WMATA are common to

those faced by transit agencies in most large metropolitan areas.

Like every transit agency, WMATA must raise State and locality

funding to match Federal capital funds and pay for operating costs

that far exceed annual capital costs. All transit agencies struggle

to balance the need to fund capital costs, including both capacity

expansion and asset maintenance, against the need to fund operating costs that cannot be deferred or avoided.

Another set of challenges involve the changing demographics and

the need to provide service to employment centers that are more

centrally located. Urban sprawl requires more route miles of public

transportation service and the relocation of businesses and suburban communities has spawned suburb to suburb commuting patterns that are harder for transit to serve. This—I’m repeating myself, aren’t I? I beg your pardon, Madam Chairman, I’ve lost my

place.

Ms. NORTON. It’s all right.

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Mr. TOBER. Regarding the challenges that are unique to the

Washington area, WMATA operates a combined bus and rail system in a multi-State region which requires the agency to seek State

and local funding from multiple jurisdictions. In terms of revenue

raised at the State and local level, which is the principal funding

source for transit operating costs, WMATA is unusual in that it derives very little of its funding from dedicated revenue sources.

Of the 14 transit systems in major metropolitan areas that operate heavy rail services, WMATA is second to last in dedicated funding, with only Boston’s transit system receiving less. WMATA receives less than 5 percent of its State and local operating aid from

dedicated sources. In contrast, New York City Transit derives 80

percent of its State and local funding from dedicated sources. In

Cleveland nearly 97 percent of State and local funding, or $148

million, is from dedicated sources.

WMATA compares favorably to transit agencies nationally in

revenue that it derives from fares. While the national average is

41.6 percent of operating costs paid by fares, WMATA’s fare box recovery ratio is 51.4 percent, nearly 10 percent higher than the national average. WMATA is responding to the challenges that it has

with a wide range of innovative practices, including operating later

night service, innovative labor contracting, making Metrobus more

competitive, and a fare simplification initiative, improving integration of its bus and rail systems with other regional systems.

Transit agencies are subject to a host of performance and oversight measures. The FTA, as you may know, conducts tri-annual

reviews of every large transit agency to measure compliance with

Federal requirements. It requires transit operators to report a wide

variety of information to the national transit data base, and it enforces numerous procurement standards.

APTA has a number of programs to assist its members, including

rail and bus safety management programs, a peer review service

and a host of technical services.

Finally, every agency must compete for customers and measures

itself by the ability to attract and retain riders. Success in doing

this is greatly affected by the quality of the service provided, including reliability, cleanliness, security, convenience and other factors.

Public transportation providers are working to address a variety

of emerging trends that affect how they serve their customers.

Traffic congestion, the cost of motor fuels, clean air mandates are

all contributing to increasing demand for public transportation

service.

At the same time the demand is rising, transit infrastructure is

aging. Despite major increases in TEA–21 for rail modernization

funding, aging rail systems struggle to add modern safety features

and maintain their systems in a good state of repair. There is not

enough Federal investment for urban communities who want to

build new rail systems or for rural systems who want public transit

service for the first time. Requests in the appropriations process for

bus and rail investment far outstrip available funding.

Madam chairman, before I conclude I’d like to make one additional comment. As you can see from my background, I have

worked at several transit agencies that have struggled to maintain

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aging rail systems. WMATA finds itself very much in that same situation now, and I see what happens when you have a situation like

that if you do not maintain those systems properly.

We’ve made enormous progress in this country and spent a lot

of money, a very good amount of money on public transit. While it’s

not an inexpensive proposition, I would be remiss if I didn’t urge

the members of this committee to support efforts to address the

public’s demand for more transit service and proper maintenance

of our existing systems.

Again, thank you for this opportunity to testify before the subcommittee, and thank you and the other witnesses for allowing me

to go out of order.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tober follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Tober. We appreciate

you being here.

Ms. Mack.

Ms. MACK. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Norton. With me today

are the Honorable Decatur Trotter, Prince Georges County, MD,

the first vice chairman of the Board, and the Honorable Christopher Zimmerman of Arlington, VA, the second vice chairman.

They have already been introduced to you. On behalf of the Board

I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to talk about our transit system.

The unique Federal-regional partnership which created and supports the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has endured for nearly half a century, and together we have created the

finest transit system in the Nation, providing quality transit service for the National Capital Region, Federal employees, tourists

and visitors from all over the country and the world.

The WMATA compact enabling legislation specifies how Board

members are appointed, how the Authority is financed, and how we

procure goods and services. WMATA’s 12 Board members represent

those jurisdictions that finally participate in funding Metro. The

compact also mandates consensus in that all actions of the Board

require an affirmative vote from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, the compact signatories. Jurisdictions covered

under the WMATA compact are the District of Columbia, Montgomery and Prince Georges County, MD, Fairfax County, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax City, Falls Church and Loudoun County,

VA.

Our efforts are a case study in making regionalism work. In January 2001 the last segment of the original 103-mile rail system will

open from Anacostia to Branch Avenue. In March we will observe

the 25th anniversary of Metrorail. It is a time for celebration by

those in the Congress, the Federal Government and the region who

have worked so hard to bring us to this point.

Transit ridership is at an all time high and customer demand

continues to grow. Each weekday 18 percent of total work trips are

made on transit and 40 percent of total work trips to the inner core

are made on transit. With over 340,000 Federal employees located

in this area, 36 percent of our rail customers are Federal workers.

In addition, Metro serves many of the region’s 21 million visitors

each year and large numbers of people attending special events in

the Nation’s capital. No other transit system in the country is

called upon to regularly handle such events.

In meeting the challenges of increasing ridership and a maturing

system, the Board and staff are doing everything within our power

to ensure that our riders have a safe, efficient and affordable transit system. Over the years the Board has engaged in active oversight of the Authority. In addition to our policymaking role, the

Board conducts detailed performance reviews, monitors financial

statements, ridership trends, operations reliability, and customer

feedback, and we direct changes where indicated.

We have also emphasized fiscal prudence and have implemented

programs to assure that budget growth is reasonably contained.

The Board’s Budget Committee annually conducts detailed budget

proceedings, which include the establishment of budget guidance

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for the general manager, review and comment by participating jurisdictions and the chief administrative officers of the region. Before the budget is approved by the Board it must be concurred in

by all member jurisdictions.

These authorities are also subject to oversight by a number of

outside agencies, including the Federal Transit Administration, the

National Transportation Safety Board and the Tri-State Oversight

Committee.

I would just like to take a few minutes to focus on some of our

funding challenges. Chart 1 shows that approximately 54 percent

of WMATA’s 2001 operating budget will be covered by fares paid

from our customers. This reflects a 69 percent cost recovery on the

rail system, the second best in the country. In some months rail recovery is in the high 70’s and for the month of July this year it

was 81 percent, a record for WMATA. These recovery rates have

steadily increased despite the fact that we have not had a fare increase in 5 years. We can also say that we will not have a fare increase in 2002. Approximately 40 percent of the 2001 budget will

be paid for by $366 million in subsidies from the District and the

Maryland and Virginia participating jurisdictions. Chart 2 shows that of the $9.4 billion cost of the 103-mile Metrorail system, approximately 67 percent was funded by Federal appropriations and the remainder was funded by State and local jurisdictions. We are proud that the last 131⁄2 miles of the construction program were completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

The last chart, chart 3 shows our 2001 infrastructure renewal

program, or capital improvements program, of $170 million, which

is needed to purchase and rehabilitate rail cars and buses and to

refurbish facilities. Approximately 76 percent of WMATA’s infrastructure funding comes from TEA–21, with the remainder from

State and local sources. Annual funding levels of $445 million are

required to maintain adequate rolling stock and to refurbish our

physical plant. Of this amount, $180 million is currently unfunded.

TEA–21 expires in fiscal year 2003, and we hope that Federal funding will increase when the bill is reauthorized.

Adequate Federal funding is needed to help sustain the Metro

system. At the same time it is imperative that the region step up

to the task and continue to contribute its share of Metro’s infrastructure renewal cost.

Finally, the Federal Government and the region have created the

finest transit system in the Nation. But we find ourselves at the

crossroads that other older systems have experienced. We must

now garner the support needed to protect our enormous investment. We cannot stand by and allow our system to decline to a

point where it cannot meet the demands placed upon it, as has

happened in cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston. As

we look to the future, we must be prepared for the dynamic

changes that are occurring in our region.

In 1999, the Board adopted an ambitious 25-year service expansion plan with a goal of doubling transit ridership. We are now

working with the region and the Federal Government on our first

expansion beyond the 103-mile system, including a new station at

New York Avenue in the District and extension along the Dulles

Corridor and to Largo Town Center. We must all work together to

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look for ways to meet the funding challenges presented by our need

to preserve and protect the magnificent system and to expand both

the rail and the bus systems to serve the demands of this growing

region.

On behalf of the WMATA Board, I commit to you that we will

continue the close partnership with the region and the Federal

Government to operate a transit system worthy of the Nation’s capital. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mack follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS [presiding]. Thank you very much.

Mr. White.

Mr. WHITE. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. My name is Richard White, and I have been the

general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority since August 1996. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss

with you the current state of the Metro system, our many successes

and some of our most significant challenges. I am submitting, Mr.

Chairman, my testimony for the record and would like to use my

time to try and work off of—— Mr. DAVIS. Your whole testimony and all of yours is in the

record. So thank you.

Mr. WHITE. First, just to give you some information on the size

of our operation, the metropolitan area that we serve is 41⁄2 million

and it’s about the seventh largest area in the United States. Metrorail system carries 163 million trips. That’s the second largest, as

we’ve already heard. Our bus system carries 138 million trips per

year. That’s the sixth largest. And our total system carries 301 million trips per year. That’s the fourth largest in the United States.

The size of our work force is over 9,300 positions, about the third largest. Our operating budget is $728.5 million, the sixth largest.

The percent of people who use our services to the urban core on

a daily basis for commute purposes is 40 percent and those who

use it for regional trips during the work period is 18 percent. That

makes us the second largest.

The message, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, is

the transit utilization is disproportionately greater in this region

than in most other areas of the country.

Chart No. 2 tells you about the age of the Metrorail system.

Many people still think of the system as a young system. Its visual

condition literally belies its true age. This chart shows you the various segments of our system and the age. Those in red are between

17 and 25 years of age. As you can see, that’s 45 percent of our

system. In blue that’s between 9 and 16 years, and that’s 33 percent of our system. And less than 8 years is 22 miles, or only 22

percent of our system.

Next year, specifically March 29, 2001, we celebrate the 25th

year of the Metrorail operation and we are now beginning to experience the effects of an aging rail system.

On chart 3, the Metrobus system was established in 1973 as a

result of WMATA’s purchase of four private bus companies who

were failing in the region. Some of the facilities used today were

literally built in the early 1900’s and were actually used as streetcar barns. The average age of our fleet is 7.8 years, which is an

accomplishment for us in that it was over 10 years just 2 to 3 years

ago because of the ages of many of our facilities, which go back as

early as 1906.

Recently our ridership, just to give you an indication of what the

ridership growth has been on Metrobus and Metrorail for the last

decade, in 1990 the system was carrying 301 million trips per year.

The local bus and commuter rail system carried another 18 million

trips, meaning there were 319 million trips per year carried on

transit services in 1990. 10 years later, interestingly enough, the

Metro system is carrying about the same number, 301 million. As

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you can see, there’s been considerable differences with large growth

on the rail side and decreasing growth, or actually a steep decline

on the bus side. On top of the 301 million trips are 44 million trips

carried by county-based bus systems and the commuter rail system.

So the region is carrying 345 million trips per year.

On the bus system, the changes have been related to, I would

say, four issues. One is as we open rail services our bus system literally is converted to a feeder bus system. Also, some of the counties have been establishing their own local bus services to substitute for some of the Metro services. In the mid-1990’s we had a

devastating effect of fare increases and service cuts, which led to

a 20 percent reduction on the bus system. The news for the last

3 years is up 14 percent, the bus system is even up higher, 16 percent. So today we are literally carrying 128,000 trips per day more

than we did just 3 years ago.

Chart 5 tells you what the effect of this public investment in the

Metrorail system has been. Each of these arrows represents what

would be a need for an additional five to six lines of high capacity

to move the same number of people that Metro moves during the

peak period. You could see that capacity would need to come literally in the 14th Street Bridge Corridor, Roosevelt Bridge Corridor, Wisconsin Connecticut Avenue Corridor, Georgia Avenue

Corridor, New York Avenue Corridor, and Pennsylvania Avenue

Corridor. Each peak period we carry 200,000 people both in the

morning and afternoon rush hours; 85,000 of them are carried in

the peak 1 hour. Like a utility, we are very peak oriented. We run

480 trains during the peak period, literally two trains per minute.

Chart 6 shows our service reliability from the period of time January 1999 through August 2000. This is an index that measures

two things: The percent of our trips that are completed within 4

minutes of the scheduled time as well as the effect as to whether

anybody is off-loaded off of a train and is inconvenienced because

of a mechanical malfunction. As you can see, our performance has

generally been within the 97, 98 percent range, sometimes approaching 99 percent, which means that on a daily basis we’re carrying approximately 600,000 people and we are successfully delivering 580,000 to 590,000 of them to their destination. However, for

the 10,000 to 20,000 who are delayed, we do recognize that is a serious inconvenience to them and we are focused on trying to make

those numbers even better.

On chart 7, this speaks to the infrastructure renewal program

issues that we have, our capital refinancing issues. These numbers

in our program were developed on a very comprehensive needs assessment that we had conducted a couple of years ago. I would say

that we really did our homework on trying to understand what our

funding needs were for capital reinvestment, and over 25 years this

shows a need to invest $9.8 billion just to repair and replace our

assets. It has nothing to do with providing service improvements

or growth issues. This is necessary to protect what has been a $10

billion public investment in our regional rail system, which if we

were building it today would cost $22 billion to construct. Presently

this is approximately 88 percent funded, as you may hear in testimony later, in the regional planning process. That is a large issue

that we are dealing with.

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As you can see, we are today in the $170, $190 million range of

annual funding. We are growing to $265 million but need to grow

to $445 million, and the green space of the chart shows you that

$180 million per year funding level that we are seeing ourselves

being short on.

Two other arrows to point for you on this. One is the expiration

of funding agreements with our local funding partners for which

that is the only actual funding commitments that we have in place

for 2003, and also pretty much around the same timeframe the expiration of the TEA–21 transportation reauthorization bill, the importance of that, that reauthorization bill to perhaps help us address some of our issues.

If I could finish with the last chart, Mr. Chairman, to kind of just

succinctly describe what we consider to be our key management

challenges. These are explained in considerable detail in my testimony. The first challenge of course is to provide our basic mission

of providing safe and reliable service, which is growing more challenging in the face of growing pains where we’re serving record demand, operating at near capacity and aging pains where we’re contending with an aging infrastructure. We have clearly had two or

three wakeup calls that have been well chronicled: In April 1999

during the Cherry Blossom Festival, April 20th, of our fire incident

and the July 19th Red Line incident that I’m prepared to talk to

you about a little bit later and is included in my testimony.

Second challenge is the one that we’ve been talking about in

terms of securing sufficient funding to adequately rehabilitate and

replace WMATA’s system infrastructure. I think, as has been said,

we are literally now at the crossroads as to whether we’re going to

allow ourselves to fall further behind in disrepair or meet the challenges that we need to keep our infrastructure in the kind of condition that people are accustomed to.

Our third challenge is maintaining the reliability of our elevators

and escalators. We have the most and deepest in the world, and

they are suffering the effects of exposure to weather. And my testimony explains a number of things that we’re doing in that arena.

Our fourth challenge is to ensure that we do have the sufficient

rolling stock system and facility capacity to support our goal of

doubling ridership in the next 25 years, and that indeed is a serious challenge.

Our fifth challenge is to meet the growing demands of a changing

population employment center in this metropolitan area. Much of

our growth is now occurring in the outer suburbs. It is estimated

by the year 2025 two-thirds of the trips will be suburb-to-suburb

trips, and that clearly brings some new challenges for us.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the last key challenge that I would point

to is the need that we would have the capacity inside of our organization to enhance and ensure that we have that capacity to continue to do the job that we do and to meet the challenges ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to comment.

[The prepared statement of Mr. White follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Dugger.

Ms. DUGGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Norton. I’m Dorothy Dugger, deputy general manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District [BART]. I’m pleased to participate in today’s hearings. I hope in exploring some of the issues

faced by WMATA and the other systems you’ve invited here today,

the subcommittee will hear some of the common issues confronting

rail transit properties such as ours and that those concerns can be

further examined in the context of the upcoming reauthorization of

TEA–21.

BART operates a 95-mile, 39-station rapid rail transit system

that serves four counties and 16 cities on both sides of San Francisco Bay. The nine-member board of elected directors governs the

agency and we employ a work force of just under 3,500 people.

In recent years we’ve undergone tremendous growth and change.

We’ve just completed the first expansion of the original system,

adding 24 miles of rail and five stations. Construction of an 8.7-

mile, four-station extension to serve San Francisco International

Airport is almost 70 percent complete and will add 70,000 trips to

our system. We very much appreciate our partnership with Congress, which has yielded a multi-year new starts funding commitment that will cover about half of the cost of that extension.

Since service to the public began in 1972, BART has been a vital

part of the Bay Area’s transportation network and never more so

than today. Our region is experiencing a booming economy. Record

low unemployment and tight housing markets have exacerbated

the jobs and housing imbalance, resulting in longer commutes and

ever growing congestion. Transportation consistently ranks as a top

priority in Bay Area public opinion polls, and the newspapers and

airwaves are filled with reports of growing congestion.

Against this backdrop more people are riding BART than ever

before. Average weekday ridership is up to 330,000 trips per day,

a full 12 percent higher than a year ago, and is growing every

month. Indeed, we are about 4 years ahead of our ridership forecast at this point. In addition, special events such as this week’s

division playoffs in the Bay Area swell our ridership on regular occasions. We’ve just set a new record yesterday of 374,900 trips,

which exceeded our prior 1-day record of 357,000, which occurred

notably after the Loma Prieta earthquake disabled the Bay Bridge

and BART was operating 24-hour service at that time and was the

only link across the Bay.

To put this ridership in perspective, BART carries about 50 percent of the peak period, peak direction trans-Bay commute. In

other words, without BART the Bay Bridge would need an additional deck to accommodate the morning commute.

This extraordinary increase in ridership is very welcome and contributes to our continued financial health, but it is straining our

core system capacity, presenting significant challenges for our

aging system and placing a premium on the reliability and quality

of the transportation service we deliver.

In the early 70’s we were the first of the new generation heavily

automated rail systems to be built in the United States in about

60 years. Now we are no longer young. We are in our 28th year

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of revenue service. Signs of age have begun to show on virtually

every aspect of our system, affecting reliability, maintainability

and appearance.

In order to sustain the reliable and quality service that our customers demand and support the growing numbers of riders, it is

imperative that there be regular ongoing reinvestment in our existing physical infrastructure. To ensure that we are able to do that,

we embarked on an initial 10-year, $1.1 billion renovation program

in 1995 under our General Manager’s, Dick White, at the time,

leadership. The cornerstone and largest element of that renovation

program is the renovation of our original fleet of 439 railcars. It

will add about 20 years to the useful life of that equipment at

about half the cost of buying new cars. We’re also replacing or overhauling escalators, elevators, fare gates, ticket vending machines,

and upgrading train control and computer systems and traction

power systems. These improvements will help us maintain our

schedule, mean fewer train delays, more reliable service and more

comfortable facilities for our customers.

This is not, however, a one-time 10-year program. This will be

an ongoing requirement as our system continues to age if we are

to avoid the experience that Ms. Mack referred to earlier that several older properties have faced before us; namely, underinvestment, service deterioration, loss of ridership, loss of revenue, leading to further service deterioration, and so the cycle continues.

As we are aging, we are also growing, and investment to increase

the capacity of our core system to support increased ridership is

also required. To understand these needs we are conducting a 30-

year system capacity enhancement study to identify, quantify and

establish priorities for these core system improvements. We are

looking at systems such as vertical circulation in our stations, access parking and other modes, maintenance shop capacity, track

flexibility, rolling stock, and so on.

Strategic system expansions to serve new corridors in our growing region are another critical component of BART’s program of

capital priorities.

And, finally, in our area seismic safety is a major concern. We

are looking at the retrofit requirements of our system. In addition

to investment, however, maintaining service quality and reliability

on an aging system requires an ever greater emphasis on adequate

and effective maintenance resources and programs, a keen focus on

customer service, as well as operating recovery strategies to quickly

mitigate service disruptions when they inevitably do occur.

Given the density of service, closer headways and more crowded

trains, when we do have service disruptions, there is less recovery

time. More trains and thus more people are unfortunately ultimately affected.

To summarize, we face a number of key challenges in implementing our program of capital priorities to enable us to continue to deliver high quality, reliable, convenient and efficient rapid transit

service to the growing San Francisco Bay Area. System renovation,

expanded core system capacity, strategic expansions and seismic

retrofit are all critical capital needs that must be addressed in

order to support growing levels of service.

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We recognize that achieving our goals requires regular ongoing

investments. One of the key messages I want to emphasize today

is the need for a stable, predictable, adequate fund source for rail

properties that are being squeezed by high service levels, increased

demand for service and an aging physical plant that can’t be ignored.

We are extremely fortunate to receive 75 percent of a one-half

cent sales tax that is permanently dedicated to fund our operations.

That revenue stream combined with a double A bond rating has enabled us to issue bonds to help support the capital reinvestment

program. However, our needs, as you heard, exceed available resources and we welcome the opportunity to work in partnership

with our colleagues in the industry, with our local, regional and

State funding agencies and with Congress to explore potential

funding opportunities to meet these needs.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dugger follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Porter.

Ms. PORTER. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Norton. My

name is Kathy Porter. I’m the mayor of Takoma Park and the chair

of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board

[TPB], at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

The TPB is the officially designated metropolitan planning organization for the Washington metropolitan region and is charged with

implementing Federal requirements for metropolitan transportation planning. The members of the TPB include local effected officials, the transportation agencies of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia

and WMATA.

As a long-range planning organization, the TPB is especially concerned about the challenges facing Metro, which has played a critical role in our regional transportation and development plan since

the 1960’s. As has been noted, the Metrorail system today has the

second highest ridership levels of all metropolitan rail transit systems in the country. Over the next 25 years we are relying on the

Metrorail corridors to absorb an even larger number of trips and

to act as the backbone of our regional development framework. The

Metro system plays a crucial role in regional land use policy and

economic development, issues that extend far beyond the needs of

riders who depend upon the system every day.

In the Washington Metropolitan Area we are currently facing

funding challenges that directly affect the future of the Metro system. The TPB has become acutely aware of these issues in the

course of carrying out one of its most important planning functions,

the development of the region’s long-range transportation plan.

One key Federal requirement of this long-range plan is that it can

only include projects and programs for which funding is, quote, reasonably expected to be available. This means that no matter how

important a new transportation project is, it can only be included

in the long-range plan if funding for the project can be identified.

I should reiterate, as has been mentioned before, that this region

has no dedicated regional source of transportation funding. The

revenues for the region’s long-range plan come from Federal, State

and local governments and from transit fares. The long-range plan

is based on the revenues identified by the agencies responsible for

these funding sources over the 25 years of the plan.

We are currently in the middle of our 3-year update of what we

call the constrained long-range plan. This update has received considerable attention because the funding identified is not sufficient

to include many of the programs and facilities needed to address

our growing mobility needs.

The needs of WMATA have received particular attention during

this update of the long-range plan. We project that $76.8 billion

will be available for the projects and programs of all modes in the

plan over the next 25 years. This is in constant year 2000 dollars.

According to current estimates, 52 percent, or $40 billion, of the

total revenues for the plan will be designated for public transit, including local buses as well as WMATA. Of this $40 billion, $27.8

billion, or 36 percent, of total plan revenues would be used for

WMATA operations and preservation. On the revenue side this is

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partially offset by the $11.5 billion, or 15 percent, that comes from

WMATA fares.

Nevertheless, the funding allocated in the long-range plan update for rehabilitation and preservation of the Metrorail and

Metrobus system is less than is requested by the WMATA Board

of Directors. Further, the funding agencies could not identify the

resources requested by WMATA to accommodate ridership growth

over the next 25 years, funding that is needed to purchase rolling

stock and to improve stations and other facilities. In carrying out

the financial analysis that we are required to do under this planning process, we determined that the available funding is not sufficient to meet these WMATA requests without seriously undermining the region’s ability to maintain and upgrade other critical elements of the transportation system.

In addition to developing a long-range transportation plan, the

TPB is also responsible for certifying that the plan meets air quality requirements. In doing our analysis, we had to consider how

WMATA’s unfunded needs would affect air quality, assuming that

a significant number of additional riders who would otherwise be

using the system would not be accommodated after the year 2005

because of the lack of funding for system improvements. Using this

assumption, we found that more than 100,000 additional daily trips

would have to be absorbed by the highway system in the year 2025,

causing an increase in emissions.

Work trips on transit would be particularly affected by this constraint. If Metro ridership growth were constrained because of

funding issues, transit work trips would increase by 20 percent by

2025, compared to a 37 percent increase if full funding to accommodate ridership growth were available. Furthermore, our analysis

assumed that fares on Metro would rise with the Consumer Price

Index after 2002. If fare increases were held below the CPI, ridership could be expected to increase even more substantially, which

would create even greater unfunded needs.

The funding shortfalls identified in the long-range planning process have been sobering for members of the TPB who are deeply

concerned about growing traffic congestion and its effects on our regional economy and quality of life. Only 2 years ago the TPB adopted a bold policy framework, the transportation vision, that was intended to guide our transportation investments into the next century. One of the goals of the vision is ‘‘adequate maintenance, preservation, rehabilitation, and replacement of existing infrastructure.’’ The inadequacy of funding in the long-range plan, which applies to highway maintenance as well as transit, undermines our

ability to meet the goals of this vision.

At our October 18th meeting, the TPB will consider final approval of the long-range plan update along with a resolution expressing the TPB’s serious concerns regarding the region’s inability

to meet the goals of our vision due to the shortfall in funding. In

addition, in order to begin to address this funding shortfall the

TPB is planning a series of intensive meetings and briefings with

key stakeholders. Staff from the TPB and COG have already begun

meeting with State transportation agencies and WMATA to discuss

the transit agency’s funding needs. On November 30, we will host

a structured briefing and discussion for key State level officials on

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regional transportation needs for transit, highways and other travel modes, with the goal of building consensus on actions needed to

address these needs.

I have no illusions that the funding challenges we face can be resolved quickly or easily, but we must begin to take steps now to

protect the investments we have made in our transportation system, and particularly in Metro. I believe our intensive effort this

fall working with the key officials from the State funding agencies

and WMATA will ultimately pay off in a renewed effort to address

the challenges we all face.

In closing, I also want to mention that the TPB’s vision contained

another ambitious goal that is very germane to our discussion

today. In the vision, the TPB called for ‘‘an enhanced funding

mechanism for regional and local transportation system priorities

that cannot be implemented with current and forecasted Federal,

State and local funding.’’ The important point here is that a mechanism or mechanisms need to be established to create a fiscally sustainable transportation system so that we are not simply moving

from this year’s funding challenge to a new one next year.

Throughout the coming months I hope that we can engage in an

open discussion with citizens and with our elected leaders, including Members of Congress, that will help us move toward a more

permanent funding solution.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Porter follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Carvalho.

Mr. CARVALHO. Chairman Davis and members of the subcommittee, my name is Michael Carvalho, and I both work and live in the

District of Columbia. I’m also a member of the Greater Washington

Board of Trade and serve on the Board’s Transportation and Environment Committee.

I’d like to preface my remarks today by taking this opportunity

to thank Chairman Davis for his outstanding leadership in resolving the budget issues associated with the new Wilson Bridge

project, which will go a long way in reducing congestion in our region.

Founded in 1889, the Board has a long history of working to improve the quality of life in this area. We have a longstanding support for transit and in 1912 first contemplated the idea of a transit

system for the District of Columbia. This led to a series of steps

in advocating for transit, with a critical milestone being our 1966

testimony here on Capitol Hill supporting the creation of WMATA.

Throughout Metro’s two and a half decades of providing quality

public transportation to the citizens of our region, the Board of

Trade has been a tireless advocate in promoting Metro’s benefits as

part of a balanced transportation system. We have helped fight for

additional funding and for funding targeted expansion of service.

We remain a strong advocate of transit-oriented development, both

because it improves system efficiency and leverages Metro’s role as

a catalyst for job growth and economic development.

The most recent example of this is the New York Avenue Corridor in the District of Columbia that will soon benefit from a new

Metro station. In addition, Metro is a key ingredient in our working to revitalize the District of Columbia and in putting brownfield

sites back into productive use.

Today, less than 6 months shy of Metro’s 25th anniversary, it is

still the best system in the world. Our region has the second highest transit ridership nationally and Metro has enjoyed double digit

ridership increases on both its bus and rail systems. It has set a

number of ridership records this year alone, carrying in excess of

600,000 passengers on a weekday on Metrorail numerous times. Indeed, I personally rely on Metro for my commuting needs on a daily

basis, having sold my car 2 years ago.

As you and I know, however, Metro service has recently encountered some challenges. The system has suffered through a spate of

delays brought on by malfunctions, smoke and fire. Metro mechanics tried, but could not keep pace with escalator and elevator repairs. In short, while we have an outstanding system, it’s a system

that is showing its age.

Therefore, the first institutional focus of Metro, as referenced in

the 1997 Board of Trade transportation study, must be on maintaining the existing system. ‘‘Fix it first’’ must be the mantra of

WMATA. Failure to do so threatens an already stressed transportation network and compromises the region’s high quality of life. To

maintain what we have, Metro will need funds over the next 25

years to service the buses, railcars, systems and structures that are

in place today. While most of these resources are identified, there

remains a funding gap that the District of Columbia, Maryland,

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and Virginia, along with the Federal Government, must find ways

to close.

Last, while investment in the Metro system is necessary to serve

future riders, new construction must be balanced and made within

a broader framework of other regional transportation needs, including new bridges and roads. Our region still lacks the new Potomac

River bridges and parkways required to link suburban activity centers and to address today’s predominant suburb-to-suburb trips as

well as the daily trips that Metro cannot carry. Additionally, these

new corridors will serve future suburb-to-suburb Metrorail or

Metrobus service.

In summary, we must maintain our existing system at its highest possible level of service. Future expenditures on transit roads

and bridges as our limited funding allows must balance every new

investment decision through filters of cost effectiveness, the ability

to connect high density activity areas and its impact on the greatest number of the region’s residents.

Metro is a shining star of our region, but it needs a serious infusion of investment for the challenges ahead. I respectfully urge to

you support Metro’s maintenance funding request so it can continue to remain the world class system we are so proud to call our

own.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carvalho follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Well, thank you very much.

Mr. DAVIS. We’re going to proceed to questions. I think I’m going

to start. Let me start by asking Mr. White. You are probably best

equipped to answer this. What’s accounted for the increase in bus

service, the number of bus ridership in Metro? For a while it was

going down as more and more local jurisdictions assumed bus service for various reasons. Now I see it’s going back up fairly significantly.

Mr. WHITE. I would say the most significant factor was a rather

bold action our Board took not too long ago to approve a fare simplification and integration strategy, which essentially we had one

of the most complex bus fare systems in the United States, multiple zones. You really had to know an awful lot to know what the

right fare was to pay. We basically simplified that down to one

standard fare, for all intents and purposes. We used to charge to

transfer, which is a great disincentive. We used to charge a full

fare to transfer from bus and rail and we reduced that. So we provided some very significant financial incentives for people to use

the bus system and for it to be easy for people to use the bus system, No. 1.

No. 2, we’ve replaced an awful lot of old buses. We had one of

the oldest bus fleets in the Nation. We’ve been spending a lot of

money replacing our bus fleet and of course people are going to find

that more attractive. Recently we’ve been funding that. We have

been having enough operating money to start growing our services.

One of the things you need to do is to be able to provide enough

service and a service frequency for it be convenient for people.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would say that those are possibly three factors that have contributed to that.

Mr. DAVIS. Are local governments continuing—the local governments are not continuing to go out and run their own systems then

in increasing numbers? That’s stopped at this point and stabilized?

Mr. WHITE. Yes, that trend had been quite acute for a period of

time. In 1975 Metrobus ran about 95 percent of the service in the

region and recently it’s been about 75 percent. Indeed, I think that

I had been a reflection of where people saw our service quality as

being quite good. They were critical of the cost of delivering that

service and made steps accordingly.

Recently, in our last labor contract we made significant improvements in our cost structure. We’ve actually competed in bids for

service even against the private sector and have won several of

those to provide service as a contract provider. So I think that has

begun to have people look at us with a little bit different eye and

with the knowledge that we are more cost competitive than we

were in the past.

Mr. DAVIS. You dominate the bus service in the District? How

does it rate the District, Maryland and Virginia?

Mr. WHITE. In the District, we provide all of the bus service. The

District does not run any service itself except of course for special

education. We’re actually the school bus system for the District of

Columbia as well.

Fairfax, VA, has its own fairly large bus system. Arlington has

just recently started one. Alexandria has one. Fairfax City has one.

They are all fairly small. In Montgomery County, the largest operaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Oct 09, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00157 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75013.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tor in the region is the Ride-on service in Montgomery County, and

Prince Georges County has a service called the Bus.

Mr. DAVIS. But even in those jurisdictions, it’s a combination of

both the local and the Metro service?

Mr. WHITE. Yes. All of the jurisdictions utilize the Metro for

some large piece of their service, yes.

Mr. DAVIS. I want to briefly address the addition of new stations

to the Metrorail system. That must place increased pressure on the

capacity of the station, such as Metro Center, which is not only

used for making Metrorail connections, but it also serves as the

final destination for commuters who work downtown. How does

WMATA plan to alleviate that pressure? It’s a tough enough financial pressure getting new stakes without the other priorities you

have for repairing the Metro Center. What is it going to do to that?

Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman, that’s an excellent question and one

we are just now beginning to try and find the answer to. We are

engaged in a very comprehensive review called the core capacity review. It’s probably one of the most ambitious ones in the country,

which is to examine very much the issue that you speak of. If our

goal is to double ridership in the next 25 years, and if we know

that goal is largely going to come 60 percent through a normal

service growth and 40 percent from capacity expansion, that means

that there’s going to be enormous pressure put on the core of our

system to support that ridership growth.

One-third of our rail customers transfer when they take their

trips, so a number of people are moving from one line to the other.

Our core capacity study is going to examine the answer to the

question, what happens to that core system when the ridership

doubles? What happens to our ability to have power distribution

systems that can move our trains, signaling systems, vertical movement of people in and out of stations, and all the myriad of things?

So I can’t answer your question as I sit here today. Twelve

months from now, next September, is the schedule when we have

all the answers to these questions. We’ve assembled a very impressive group of people who have tremendous knowledge and experience around the country and the world dealing with these issues.

And I think in about a year from now, we’ll know the kinds of

things we need to do to our system to have the ability to support

that kind of ridership growth.

Mr. DAVIS. Great. Thanks. Anybody else want to add anything to

that? All right. I know that there has been a significant delay in

scheduling the numerous escalator repairs. What kind of plan have

you proposed for eliminating the backlog of escalator repairs?

When will this be implemented? Also, are there preventative measures that WMATA can take now to alleviate the necessity for a

high volume number of repairs in the future?

Mr. WHITE. We have 205 elevators and 557 escalators. It’s the

largest number of any transit property in North America and perhaps in the world. To give you an example, the one who is second

to us is Los Angeles, 307 versus our combined 762. Another factor

is that the vast majority of all of our escalators are exposed to the

weather; 119 are unprotected. And the second one in the country

is Miami with 76. And places like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,

Atlanta and others have zero.

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So in addition to the numbers that we have, they are the deepest

in the world also. Our system, as magnificent as it is, was built

quite deep because of geological considerations and other considerations, and that has presented us with some challenges because of

the depth of the escalators.

What we are doing about it, Mr. Chairman, is we have a multifaceted program. We’re under contract now to spend over the next 6 years at least $120 million. We’re going to rehabilitate one-third

of our worst performing escalators, 170 of those escalators.

Now it will take us 6 years to complete that task. What we recently did at the Board’s urging was to come up with a plan to

shorten that to the maximum extent possible, and we found an opportunity for some number of those escalators to reduce what normally takes 16 weeks to rehabilitate a single escalator and move

that down to 12 weeks.

So that was an improvement there. The second thing we’re doing

is going to be putting canopies over our exposed escalators to protect them from the debilitating effects of the weather, particularly

water runoff. And in addition, we’ve been increasing both our own

internal capabilities to maintain the escalators by doing things

such as creating our own apprenticeship programs to make sure we

have people to do this work, but in the interim we are contracting

out more of that work. We’re right now using two firms who are

maintaining those 170 escalators that they are rehabilitating, so

we get more resources out there, more maintenance resources than

we have today.

So that’s essentially the full range of things that we’re doing to

try to address this problem.

Mr. DAVIS. Thanks. On August 10th you instituted the 60-day action plan that was going to improve rail services and communication with rail customers. What were the specific goals for improving service within that 60-day period? To what extent did you

achieve those goals? And what else do have you to do?

Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman, this was a program that was designed, in its most basic way, to greatly improve our ability to communicate with our customers. And in your opening statement, you

of course referred to a couple of incidents that we had significant

difficulty, most especially that July incident on the Red Line. And

we have found that we have not been able to perform the way we

would like, and our focus has not been where it should be on making sure that our customers are fully informed when we do have

these kinds of service delays.

So we are now in the process of retraining all of our train operators, more than 500 of them, and that program will be completed

by November, with a really new sense of commitment to communications, particularly when we are experiencing some passenger

delays. We’ve literally adopted a policy called ‘‘we stop, we tell,’’

where the customer, if they’re on the train, they’re going to hear

something from a train operator if they’re caught in a delay.

Also, our central control office who controls all of our movement

centrally, train movements centrally, is also more focused on making passenger announcements to stations and also to remind the

operator have you communicated with the customer if they’re experiencing a delay?

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So those are the major things that we’re doing. There are a number of things that are part of our call-to-action program. We are reporting to our operations committee of our board next Thursday, as

a matter of fact, with our assessment of how we’ve done in that 60-

day period. We’ve also conducted some focus group sessions with

some of our customers to get their own input. We’re going to be reporting back on that to our operations committee next week. I

think, by and large, my own personal experience using the system

and knowing what I know about the customer, the focus feedback,

I think, a good number of our customers are seeing that we’re

doing a better job with our communications.

Mr. DAVIS. I wanted to ask, Ms. Dugger, BART uses a nine-member board of elected directors. Are they elected directly? Do you like

run for chairman of BART, for the BART board?

Ms. DUGGER. They’re directly elected by the public from specific

districts in the three counties.

Mr. DAVIS. So San Mateo could get a district or the city or however it works?

Ms. DUGGER. San Mateo isn’t a member of our BART district.

But that is the idea. There are three counties that form the BART

district, and some of those are, in some cases, multi-county seats.

Mr. DAVIS. Alameda whatever.

Ms. DUGGER. OK.

Mr. DAVIS. My last question, right for this round, I address it to

you again, Mr. White, and if anyone else has any thoughts, as you

know we passed our transportation conference report today, and

aside from the Wilson Bridge, we had $217 million contingent commitment authority that allows WMATA to move ahead with construction of the Dulles line. How will that affect WMATA’s ability

to apply for Federal grant money?

Mr. WHITE. As you may know, right now we’re conducting an environmental assessment of this project going through the NEPA

process. So obviously, we’re not in a legal position to do anything

until such time as we get a record of decision. We’re expecting that

to occur by the spring of 2002. About all those appropriate qualifiers this program in this corridor, a very, very important corridor

to be served, is expected to be served with transit investments that

phase initially with the bus rapid transit system growing to an extension of the rail system, the Metrorail system, first through

Tysons Corner as the second segment, and then finally to Dulles

Airport and to Loudoun County as a third segment.

So that’s how the project is currently envisioned. Thus far, the

Congress has appropriated, assuming that this year’s appropriation

is approved by the President, which I’m sure we are all confident

that it will be, $86 million will have been appropriated by the Federal Government plus the contingent commitment that you refer to

will put that Federal commitment to over $300 million.

Right now, the Commonwealth of Virginia, who is the sponsor of

this project, is projecting that its request will be a 50 percent Federal share for the project. So if we assume that to be the case, that

would then generate somewhere around $600 million for this

project at this particular point in time. The bus rapid transit piece

of that is expected to cost in the vicinity, if you accept just general

references, approximately $250 to $275 million. So clearly, this

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would be enough to get the bus rapid transit system built and

enough to perhaps begin getting us to Tysons Corner. We would

need to have additional funds in the next reauthorization bill to

complete that rail segment, but this certainly moves the project

along, and the bus rapid transit phase, and begins to get to a critical mass on the rail, first phase of the rail extension.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. White, pleased to see the improved statistics. They may be

hard for the public to translate. That’s why, for example, your explanation to the chairman about, ‘‘we stop, we tell,’’ was very reassuring, since the lack of communication may be worse than what

may have occurred in a given tunnel or at any given time.

But I’d like to ask a question about the first few weeks when

there seemed to be a stop and a delay every time we were told

someone thought there was a little bit of smoke, that—and we are

told in here, I’d like to hear your rendition here as to whether or

not this is true, that in response to the fire, that there was an overreaction, or a sense if there is a little bit of smoke, then the whole

works stops, that of course, leads to questions about whether or not

management is prepared to make adjustments and changes as

needed as opposed to taking a system like this and putting it on

hold until you calibrate to the point where you know what you

want to do. So let me ask a question, suppose there’s a little bit

of smoke today when some of these folks go home, how would the

system handle a little bit of smoke in a tunnel today?

Mr. WHITE. If I could answer that question, Ms. Norton, by taking you through what has admittedly been some changes in our

procedures as we responded to the April 20th tunnel fire, and

clearly they have, particularly during the month of June, they had

an acute effect on some of our service reliability issues. Let me also

preface it by saying that as we have moved in this district, what

we have been seeking to accomplish is to find the optimum medium

between safety considerations and service reliability considerations.

I would say that in June when we made our first procedural

change, it was actually June 5th where there was a sense that we

didn’t have procedures that were sound enough that would govern

how we would respond to a set of questions when there were fire

and smoke detected. We moved to a procedure that was a very,

very conservative procedure, seeking the high ground on the safety

side.

And that procedure said that whenever there is any sign of any

kind of fire and smoke detected, and I would also say that there

is literally almost any number of things that can cause that kind

of event. And the vast majority of those are just extremely minor

in nature, such as some debris blowing into the tunnel and coming

in contact with the third rail, which immediately extinguishes

itself, brakes that go on and causing malfunction, and it’s really

the vehicle that emits a little bit of smoke and sometimes there’s

a sense that perhaps that’s a more serious condition.

So our procedures that any time we saw any fire and smoke, we

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partment. They would be dispatched and they would then clear the

scene.

Well, when that happened we saw a remarkable series of serious

delays that occurred for 2 weeks and the vast majority of those

were really related to very minor events. We then saw at that point

in time that we were probably not where we wanted to be with our

procedure. We modified it a second time on June 17, and I would

also say that each time we made these changes we did it in consultation with the local fire chief to make sure we were in proper

coordination with them. The second procedure recognized that we

probably should be capable of diagnosing smoke conditions unless

it was obvious that there was a severe, heavy smoke. The fire department said it was OK for us to proceed and to take action on

those conditions that were smoke related, and those that were fire

related we would yield to the fire department. In all instances we

always notified the fire department, even when we’re handling the

situation, so in case it gets out of control and we’ve misdiagnosed

it, they’re there on the scene and they will not be delayed in getting there.

That second procedural change came close to right-sizing us, if

we examine the statistics that you were looking at, Ms. Norton.

That occurred in the middle of the month of June and we found

that was in the beginning to put us in the direction that we needed

to go.

The third change we made, which is where we are today, recognizes yet another condition, and that was imposed in July of this

year, which indicates that—and also for purposes of education

when people hear about a fire in a tunnel we’re a system that’s basically concrete and steel. There’s literally nothing to burn in our

system. Most of these conditions are power-related conditions and

arcing-related conditions that are classified as a fire condition. We

have 50,000 of what are called insulators that work with our power

distribution systems and sometimes those, when they’re subjected

to water conditions and if there’s any kind of debris near it, get

into a condition called arcing where they’re kind of glowing. And

under that condition the fire department has recognized that’s a

power issue. They don’t want to deal with that themselves. But

they allowed us to start to deal with those conditions on our own

and we have found since that month of June that our situations

are now literally on the average of only three to four per month,

which has been about the average that we had experienced in the

year before.

So I think we are now exactly where we need to be as compared

to a year ago and we are still working with the fire department to

determine whether there are any other circumstances that we can

be qualified to handle.

Ms. NORTON. That certainly is reassuring. The notion though

that in order to decide what to do, obviously if you didn’t know

what to do you did the right thing. You’re a public carrier and so

you’re responsible. I mean, the negligence is yours no matter what

you do. The notion of shutting it down and finding out what to do

is understandable but only because obviously there was not a worst

case scenario that in advance would have told you what to do. I

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nished, not so much from the fire but from the successive shutdowns thereafter, which said to people, my god, this is chronic.

They haven’t fixed it. So here you were shutting down for precautionary reasons for the most part but the message sent to the

public said these guys are burning up now. We expect fires to come

time and time again. That, it seems to me, speaks to the failure

of management in advance to have foreseen that such matters

could arise and to have had in place already a way to deal with

them.

What I take it—I understand you all are having—what do you

call it? Not raids but—— Mr. WHITE. Surprise audit reviews.

Ms. NORTON. Yes. Does that kind of thing—I call it worst case

scenarios, so that people are already trained, so that this could

never happen. But suppose it does, this is what we do if the impossible happens so that people immediately go into that. I mean if

you’re in the military that’s how you would have to behave. And

I guess when you are a public carrier you either behave that way

or you’re right, you shut the business down and do worse by yourself than if something had actually happened.

Mr. WHITE. Yes, Mrs. Norton, we do regular emergency disaster

testing drills that put us to the test with all of the local fire departments. We actually did one recently that was quite unprecedented.

We did it involving Amtrak and the commuter rail services as well

to test a worst case event in a common corridor where Metrorail

shares the same type of track or adjacent track with passenger and

freight railroads.

The other thing we have done recently that in my opinion has

proven to be one of the most successful things that we have done

is we, each month now, have on a regular basis a set of after-action

meetings where we bring in all the fire chiefs from all of the departments and sit down and review what happened that month for

after-action reviews and lessons learned. And it used to be that

didn’t happen very regularly and when it did it only happened with

the jurisdiction in which the event took place. Now everybody

would like to know what happened there, if it happens in my part

of the service territory, did I learn something about how Montgomery handled that that could be a benefit to the District. So that has

worked quite well and I think is also another reason why our

events have now normalized. I would agree with you the month of

June was about as bad as it could get. It was a very difficult month

for us and there were a lot of lessons learned.

Ms. NORTON. The chairman and I want to explore these funding

problems. The chairman and I were looking at this graph that

showed how much you were unfunded. Of course everyone says

what everyone always says. We look to the Federal Government to

fund us. Well, you know, good luck. Look what it has taken with

the London Bridge falling down with the Woodrow Wilson Bridge

to get what it should have gotten from the Federal Government for

a Federal bridge.

I want to explore this dedicated source notion that Ms.

Fernandez talked about, that Ms. Dugger talked about, first of all,

somebody testified, I think it’s Ms. Fernandez, I don’t know if this

is said with pride or blame, but that WMATA gets more funds from

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the box than other systems. Should I applaud or is that part of the

problem?

Mr. WHITE. No, that’s a good statement.

Mr. DAVIS. It depends on your philosophy, I guess.

Mr. WHITE. That’s true. It is a reflection of how much we charge

our customers.

Ms. NORTON. Let me go to my next question. Lately—the chairman wants to soak the poor. I am trying to find out how to—I am

a Democrat. I am trying to increase ridership.

Mr. DAVIS. She wants to soak the middle class.

Ms. NORTON. I am trying to figure out how to increase ridership.

And some of what you’ve done in recent years has amounted to

saying we’re going to give up money in order to get more people;

for example, your hours that have been lengthened, which costs

you more money, but then you get an increase in ridership. Which

leads me to why should I applaud that more people, including more

poor people in the District of Columbia you know are paying

through, are paying through the box and that cost is not being

shared more equitably throughout the region, which has one of the

highest incomes in the United States. Why should I applaud that

people who make minimum wage jobs in the District of Columbia

pay a greater amount of the cost of WMATA, are paying through

the fare box then, that somehow this cost is spread around the region. So far you have not gotten at least one hand clapping here

in the District of Columbia but perhaps you can enlighten me.

Mr. WHITE. Let me try to answer this in one of two ways. The

first is that the fair recovery ratio is the product of two factors.

One is an expense factor and the second is a revenue factor. So it

is the two working in harmony. And a great deal of our improvement is as much related to expense containment as it is to ridership growth and the customer paying a particular share.

Ms. NORTON. You haven’t raised fares since what?

Mr. WHITE. 1995.

Ms. NORTON. Any fare increases in the offing?

Mr. WHITE. We have made pledges as an institution to go to at

least 2002 before we even consider it, and I would say a good number of the members of our board would like to be able to stretch

that commitment much longer than that. So I think from that point

of view it is commendable in that it is as much a factor of expense

as it is revenue.

The second one, Ms. Norton, is that factor is a combination of

two issues. The bus fare recovery ratio is about 35 percent and 45

percent of our riders are district riders on the bus system. So that

is subsidized two-thirds in recognition that it’s a more labor intensive situation to run a bus situation. The rail recovery ratio is in

the vicinity of 75 percent and again most of the District riders are

one zone riders. So the rail system being as efficient as it is because of the volume of people it carries and the densities does bring

in 75 percent. And again that’s a combination of expense and revenue. But you put those two factors together then you get our system percent, but those who use our services who are most in need,

and that in many instances is our bus customer, does much better

if you will. And beyond that things that we did in recognition of

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tomer every time they transferred from one bus to another. And

about 40 percent of our people on the bus system transfer, and

even though it was 10 cents that’s a major inconvenience. Throwing the cost of that transfer out, which we did, is a major benefit

to the people, particularly in the District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON. That’s exactly what I meant.

Mr. WHITE. Maybe I can get one hand, if not two.

Ms. NORTON. Because it paid not to take more money in order

to get more riders. I want to know about dedicated sources of income since that is talked about over and over again. First of all,

is there any other jurisdiction in the United States that has a Metrorail system that does not have a dedicated source of income or

are we unique or fairly unusual in that regard?

Mr. WHITE. The couple who are at the bottom of the list are ourselves, Boston and Miami, I think are the ones who are lowest

down on the list on the major urban systems.

Ms. NORTON. Lowest on the list in what way?

Mr. LYNCH. Meaning least amount of dedicated resources that

come their way. A number of systems are in the nineties and

eighties and those are typically the California systems that Ms.

Dugger had referenced, their access to a half cent sales tax and a

property tax.

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask Ms. Dugger something.

Mr. DAVIS. Would you yield to me?

Is one of the problems you have to go through Virginia, Maryland

and the District to try to get it and if you had one jurisdiction—— Mr. WHITE. It greatly complicates the fact that every year we

must go through multiple jurisdictions.

Ms. NORTON. I was sure that was going to be a great part of the

answer, but Ms. Dugger, is the system which deals across jurisdictional lines in California funded by the State or does each of those

counties have to somehow come together to decide something with

respect to funding?

Ms. DUGGER. There are two pieces of the funding puzzle, if I

may. On the operating side we do have access to a portion of a half

cent local sales tax that was established by the State legislature

with the advocacy and consent of the parties in the region. That

contributes to our operating budget where we too have a strong

fare box recovery ratio. This year about 68 percent of our operating

cost coming from our fares which in turn allows us to use a portion

of that half cent sales tax revenue as a revenue stream against

which we bond to generate some predictable long term, multi-year

funding to support our ongoing capital programs. Typically these

projects require up front contractual commitments of a relatively

large nature, many of them well exceeding what we might get in

an annual appropriation process be it at the local, regional or State

or Federal level. So the ability to have that ongoing permanent revenue stream which we can go to the market and say this is reliable

and we can issue bonds against it has helped us in managing our

capital investment program.

On the capital side we are in a very competitive environment in

a nine county Bay Area region with over two dozen transit operators providing service in that environment. So even the formula

funds which flow to our region, whether it be from the Federal or

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State level, go through a fairly competitive process. I am not familiar, I am not intimately familiar with the details of WMATA but

where we too have to get consensus within our region of multiple

players, multiple decisionmakers in that funding environment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. White, what difference would it make, perhaps

it doesn’t make as much difference as we think, what difference

would it make if you had a dedicated source of revenue for

WMATA?

Mr. WHITE. I think it’s an important point to clarify that there

is this notion of dedicated, which says there is a singular form of

taxing revenue that comes directly your way, and that’s one way

some systems go. A way other systems go is access to what I’ll call

adequate, stable and reliable source of funding, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s one singular source. I think——

Ms. NORTON. I’m sorry. You have to give me an example of what

you mean by that.

Mr. WHITE. I think the State of Maryland, for example, would

say we provide you with a dedicated source of revenue because we

have a bunch of taxing revenues that go into our transportation

trust fund and then they go out and they make decisions what goes

to roads, what goes to transit, what goes to aviation, and although

we can’t count on the knowledge that we’re going to get so much

every year it’s a source of revenue that is managed through their

trust fund. And they might contend that it is some sort of adequate, stable and reliable funding.

Ms. NORTON. A trust fund, just to make sure, a trust fund at the

discretion of the local jurisdiction to decide how much money you

get is a reliable source of revenue for you?

Mr. WHITE. At the discretion of the State, yes. This is all managed at the State level. But to my way of thinking, Ms. Norton, I

think the issue really is how can we with some degree of certainty

have a knowledge that there is a predictable amount of funding

that is going to come and we know generally what that level is and

we know that it’s good every year so we can do some long-term

planning. And we are hampered a bit in not being able to do longterm planning, working off of hopes and expectations. Now, for example, we do have a funding agreement with our local funding

partners to handle this rehabilitation thing through the year 2003

and that is reassuring in that our local funding partners have said

we’re good for this, this amount of money, during this period of

time, but after that we would have to wait and see what happened.

So to my way of thinking, what it is is to have some degree of

knowledge no matter how the fund sources are applied that it’s

adequate, stable and reliable.

Ms. NORTON. I don’t know what we can do for you because the

political leadership in this region as well as it works together is

completely bollixed up, I must say, ideologically on this score about

how to do it. And perhaps the jurisdictions themselves need to get

together if they’re serious about things like roads, where the most

serious problem exists, and to straighten it out. I recognize that

mass transit is doing the best it can. But you are going to reach

a problem and I can tell you that Congress is not going to just

come up with money to make up for that gap.

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Finally, let me say to you, Mr. White, we in the District are

pleased that WMATA has appropriated or agreed to buy some natural gas buses instead of all diesel buses. And as you know, I have

been trying ever since that decision was made to get some Federal

funds to make up for the loss that you would encounter because

those buses apparently cost you more. Now that came late. And the

money from transportation, the bill that just went through was

earmarked up the gazoo and we have not been able to get money

from the Federal Government.

I would like to know if at least some natural gas buses nevertheless can be purchased in light of the fact that you are frankly choking to death little children in the District of Columbia. Our asthma

rates are some of the highest in the country and your buses have

a lot to do with that. We may be able if we keep up, because I

think it’s $5 million or more involved, to get some money. But we

would hate to see given the emergency nature of the health crisis

affecting children in particular with asthma in the District—we

don’t live in the wide open spaces of Fairfax County. We would particularly want you to spend some of that money on diesel buses and

I ask you are you prepared to do that? I mean natural gas.

Mr. WHITE. Ms. Norton, our board has directed me to find out

how to finance 100 compressed natural gas buses.

Ms. NORTON. You say what?

Mr. WHITE. The board has by its own policy resolution indicated

that we’re going to buy 100 compressed natural gas buses as our

next purchase and they have directed me to come back to them in

the month of November with an assessment of how we’re going to

finance that. So my job as directed by the board is to figure out

how to do it, not whether we’re going to do it. And we’ll be reporting back in November with what our best hopes are as to how

we’re going to do that and we’ll figure out a way to do it. There

may be some financing involved. There may be some additional

issues if we’re not able to find a singular pot of money, but we’re

going to find a way to buy 100 compressed natural gas buses.

Ms. NORTON. Oh, my goodness. That’s the very best news to

come out of this hearing for me, and I very much appreciate what

you’ve just said. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Let me piggyback on that question. Natural gas buses cost more obviously to buy because of supply and demand. They’re not that much in demand. How about the operations?

Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman, our board asked panel of experts

from around the country to come and testify in their experiences

so that they would have a full benefit of what’s going on in the industry. And the answer to that question is that it’s largely driven

by what the environmental conditions are of each particular area,

what the cost of natural gas is, which fluctuates quite dramatically.

Depending on where you are in the United States, the price fluctuates. Generally, most people say that it’s either fairly equivalent

or the differential is not so significant as to warrant a decision on

that basis alone. So that’s the information we’re going with.

Mr. DAVIS. OK.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, could I piggyback on that as well?

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We understand that Washington Gas built for Montgomery county a facility for fueling this, but then we heard, we said, well, perhaps we can get that, and we thought that was done, and probably

in order, to show that this can work. And then we found out, or

at least we were told, and here I am asking for information here

that, in effect, Montgomery County was going to end up paying the

entire cost at premium rates for it, and therefore, this was not

much of a savings one way or the other; is that the case?

Mr. WHITE. Well, maybe. My mother certainly told me that nothing in life is for free, and if it sounds like too good of a deal, it

probably is. In some instances what happens, and we did meet with

the official of Washington Gas, so that we had the benefit of their

perspective on this issue, and there are others who, on a commercial basis, provide a service which says that we’ll build, operate and

maintain your facility for you. We’ll take care of it. You won’t have

to pay for it. It is clear they need to recoup their investment. They

are not in the business of being so generous. So clearly, these arrangements are such that they are repaid in some form or fashion,

and that may be in what the cost of the gas is that you purchase.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Let me ask a question, unlike the BART

system in San Francisco, if I can draw a parallel, I understand

Metrorail doesn’t run the full-length, eight-car trains during rush

hour; is that correct?

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir. Our system has the physical capability to

physically accommodate eight cars in a station, and that would

take us literally from almost every square inch of one end of the

station to the other. By the way, BART operates 10-car trains and

was set up to operate 10-car trains, and also has an added advantage of something called programmed stop in its automatic train

operations, which allows the train to be stopped with more precision than ours can.

We know that there is probably only two fundamental ways that

we’re going to be able to expand our capacity in our core system,

and it’s going to come from some combination of these two factors,

if not one or the other. We are going to have to figure out how to

run eight-car trains in order to carry more people through the system and figure out what kinds of things we need to do to support

being able to run eight car trains. Or we need to reduce our

headways or the intervals between trains by coming up with—accessing some new train technology. And there are those around the

country, particularly in New York who are leading the industry

right now in evaluating wireless train control technology, which

has great benefits in allowing you to run more trains through the

rush hour.

So those two things are being studied. Those are two key questions, Mr. Chairman, that are being reviewed in our core capacity

study that I referred to you that the answers to those questions

would be ready by next year. And it is our staff’s preliminary belief

that that’s where we got to go, in one of those two directions.

Mr. DAVIS. How often do you have however many trains—what’s

your usual train load?

Mr. WHITE. Most of our trains are six-car trains, some of them

we still run four-car trains. And it’s only because we don’t have

enough rail cars to make them——

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Mr. DAVIS. So it’s not market-determined?

Mr. WHITE. Right now it’s driven by the rail fleet at the moment,

yes.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask, if I can, Ms. Fernandez. Mr. White testified that the FTA recently completed a procurement review system

at WMATA and it performed under a contract by Harris Consulting. The Harris report concluded that only 9 of 51 elements were

deficient, and 42 elements were not deficient. However, there’s a

concern that the negative findings might have been downplayed,

for example, 23 of the elements found not deficient had at least one

deficiency associated with them more over several of the elements;

19, 43 and 48 were determined to be not deficient, even though 25

percent of the files reviewed contained a deficiency of some sort. I

wonder if you could explain to us just the criteria Harris used to

conclude that elements were deficient or not deficient, and then

give us your overall feel and try to make us feel comfortable with

the findings.

Ms. FERNANDEZ. Yes, I’ll be glad to do so, Mr. Chairman and Ms.

Norton. I will say that these reports that were issued by our financial auditor, in fact, was a technical report, and that report was

then interpreted to reflect information inaccurately. So I just wanted to make that statement. The procurement systems review is a

system review that we conduct of all transit systems across the

country. We do them in increments of 20 properties per year and

the intent, the purpose is to ensure that the third party contracting

requirements of our statute are, in fact, being followed through

sound practices as it relates to the hiring of consulting services, the

procurement of goods for these transit systems.

In its executive summary, our consultant indicated that, in fact,

of the 51 elements, 9 of those elements exceeded 25 percent, which

is a threshold that the industry has identified as an average, as a

threshold. So 9 of the 51 exceeded 25 percent, and that’s what was

attempted to be conveyed in the executive summary, and that’s

what you’ve been reading in the local media.

Mr. DAVIS. In September 1997 the FTA completed a safety review of WMATA’s Metrorail operations that cited serious weakness

in the transit agency’s safety procedures and practices, have you

performed any followup of WMATA’s safety operations since then

and if so what have you found.

Ms. FERNANDEZ. Well, we have several oversight programs that

are in place right now. One of them is our management oversight

program of WMATA’s capital program, which includes the construction of the light rail system, which is in addition to any

projects within the CIP program for the bus services. That oversight is done on a priority basis. The safety oversight that you referred to earlier was one that did, in fact, identify a number of

incidences where there were issues with the way that data was

being collected and audits were being performed, particularly on

the drug and alcohol program. But once we identified those deficiencies to WMATA, they took great strides in completing a corrective action plan. And we are very satisfied with what they have in

place, their commitments include everything from training of personnel to hiring additional resources to ensure that these difficulties that were encountered earlier would not be repeated.

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Mr. DAVIS. OK. Thank you very much. Let me ask Ms. Dugger

a question. Has your reinvestment program at BART led to some

of the same public frustration that Metro has experienced.

Ms. DUGGER. One of the biggest challenges I think of delivering

a reinvestment program on an operating system, especially when

we’re carrying record numbers of riders, is that you’re taking

equipment out of service to repair or overhaul or replace it just at

a time when demand for the equipment and the service it provides

is at its greatest. So maintaining customer loyalty, keeping focused

on communicating with our customers to explain what is occurring

is, of course, a critical requirement.

I think the other realities of a renovation and reinvestment program as opposed to new construction is that it is somewhat less

predictable. We are in the midst of rehabbing about 120 of our escalators on our system and inevitably, despite the best assessment

going in, when you open up the kind of mechanical system, you

find different rates of wear and different problems than you anticipated and the work itself can take longer than was estimated,

longer than was advised—than the customers were advised of. So

yes, it is a challenge. I think we are asking for our customers’ patience and in so doing, trying very hard to articulate the long-term

benefit and reliability and service improvement that this shortterm inconvenience is causing.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Let me ask Ms. Porter a question. What

are the difficulties you have—I used to serve on that panel that

you’re chairman of. What are the difficulties you have encountered

in working with WMATA’s board in key State and local stakeholders to identify funding, and what’s the relationship between your

board and the other stakeholders? I guess you come out of the

same government, and you do the planning, but how does that relate to the funding?

Ms. PORTER. The transportation planning board is, as its name

suggests, a planning organization. We don’t control any of the funding sources that go for the transportation projects in the long-range

plan. WMATA, as well as the local elected governments, are all

part of the transportation planning board. We serve an overall regional function in bringing together sources of funding that are

identified by these various funding sources and allocated to projects

that they have set their priority on.

As I said in my testimony, the problem that we’ve identified is

not that WMATA is getting too small a share of the pie. The problem is the pie is too small. There is, as Mrs. Norton correctly identified, a problem in getting sufficient funding for all transportation

projects in this region. WMATA is not the only agency that has a

problem with funding. We also have difficulties funding, as you

mentioned, road repair and improvement projects, also. So the

problem as we have identified it is that there is a lack of adequate

dedicated funding for transportation in the entire region.

Mr. DAVIS. OK. Thank you very much. Mr. Carvalho, let me ask

you a question. Does the board of trade have an official position or

do you have a position on the impact of the Metrorail projects such

as Largo and the Dulles lines, which address the need created by

expansion in the suburbs, and how do you rank them with the priorities for repair and maintenance of the existing system?

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Mr. CARVALHO. The expansion is clearly an important component

of the overall transportation system. I think our focus here in what

we’re trying to convey is a fix-it-first mantra where funds, as they

become available, go into maintaining a safe and reliable transportation system.

Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have only two more questions. One has to do with the later hours, Mr. White. I’d like some

notion of what the number, or even better, increased percentage of

riders has been relative to what you expected it to be and whether

or not you are considering making the hours even later.

Mr. WHITE. Our board has made permanent the extension of our

hours from midnight to 1 a.m., so that’s now on a permanent basis,

and in this fiscal year, we are now operating on a demonstration

basis until 2 a.m. So we’ve extended it that second hour. We’re supposed to report back to our board in the spring of next year with

an evaluation of how we’re doing. I would say right now thus far

that the experience has been largely close to what we had predicted

it to be in terms of the number of people who use the system during that 2 hour period. It’s generally, if I am recalling correctly, approximately 10,000 additional trips each weekend that occurs because of the extra 2 hours of service.

So I think that we’ve attempted also to try—these things require

a little bit of extra time to see where the market is, to be able to

experience periods of time when there’s good weather and things

like that. So I think we will have a very good data base by April

of next year to report back to the board, and then it will be their

policy decision as to whether we should keep the 2 a.m. in effect

on a permanent basis.

Ms. NORTON. It’s very important to do it over a space of time so

you have a reliable sense that these numbers will reoccur. Do you

have any sense of whether the increases in suburbs or city are relative to what you expected?

Mr. WHITE. It tracks largely where you would probably intuitively think where there is the most night life and reasons why

people might be attracted to the system from a restaurant point of

view and others, but one of the interesting things that we are seeing in a marketplace that is emerging as being an important marketplace are those who are using it to go to work. Those people who

are working later hours in service industries and things of that nature find that it is to their benefit now to be able to actually literally work their work shift, which might be the non-traditional

work shift, and to be able to get home at night on a late-night shift.

And that’s becoming a marketplace that we had not anticipated

at the level that we’re seeing it. So but generally, to answer your

question, it’s largely in the District of Columbia, in the Bethesda

area, and also in a sections of Arlington is generally where most

of this utilization is.

Ms. NORTON. Well, that’s where the action is in this city, Mr.

White?

Mr. WHITE. Right.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Dugger, what are the hours of BART? Here

we’re talking about weekend hours here up to 1 a.m. It doesn’t

sound like much of a night town, I know.

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Ms. DUGGER. We go to bed early in the Bay area too, so we can

get up early and meet the east coast financial market opening. Our

hours of service on weekdays are 4 a.m. until 12 p.m. The last

train gets back to its home yard, 1 or thereafter, so if you’re in the

system anywhere by 12 p.m., we say you can get home. On weekends we start a little later, 6 a.m. on Saturdays and 8 a.m. on Sundays.

The early weekday shift, or shift to earlier weekday openings to

4 a.m. was frankly a move we made after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 when we were running 24-hour service for a period

of months at that point because the Bay Bridge was out of service.

What we found at that time—I wasn’t at the organization at that

time—but what was found at that time was a new market which

was the early morning financial commute market; people going into

downtown, as I say, to be there for the East Coast start of the financial market.

We’ve continued that early morning service. Frankly, one of the

challenges, we too are getting increasing requests for staying open

later at night, in part to support the service industry. The pressure

that starts to create for transit systems like ours, and I believe to

a somewhat lesser extent WMATA, but with a very inflexible infrastructure, basically with tracks—only one track in each direction,

we have a very small maintenance window when revenue service

is not operating now.

It’s really from 1:30 a.m. until 4. So we have about 3, 31⁄2 hours

every day during the week to get the wayside maintenance, the

track maintenance, work done that we need to do. So that is one

of the balances as we look at extended hours of service.

Ms. NORTON. They learned to do it in New York with a much

longer system.

Ms. DUGGER. New York has much greater flexibility in terms of

express tracks and being able to isolate one track for work while

still operating service. In our case we don’t have that flexibility to

pass or to shift from one track to another.

Ms. NORTON. Did you say what you all do on weekends?

Ms. DUGGER. We begin revenue service at 6 a.m. on Saturdays

and 8 a.m. on Sundays, and we end at the same midnight closing.

Ms. NORTON. I see. Finally, I am intrigued, Mr. White, in your

testimony by the increasing indications that you come in under

budget in construction. How are you able to do that?

Mr. WHITE. Well, of course, it’s good management, Mrs. Norton.

Mr. DAVIS. You have to stop right there.

Mr. WHITE. The last 131⁄2 miles of our fast track segment was

a $2.1 billion budget, and at this stage we are $250 million under

budget for that construction program. It’s been applied to things we

wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, such as purchasing rail cars and

building a rail maintenance facility. I would say it is attributed to

a few factors. One is the fact that some of our price estimates or

our cost estimates were built upon our previous experiences, and

we did suffer through some very high inflation years, particularly

in the 80’s where that was extraordinarily high inflation.

So we’ve been able to take advantage of lower inflation rates recently. We always try to promote the maximum amount of competition. And of course, as we all know, the more competition, the betVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Oct 09, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00172 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75013.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ter the pricing. And we’ve been quite successful at attracting competition.

And the other things we do as well is we take very seriously

doing value engineering, which takes a critical look at all the elements that go into your system, and do you need all of those elements? You, of course, never want to sacrifice something that you

really need, but if there are things that are not quite necessary, or

if there’s cheaper ways to do them, we take advantage of value engineering. And finally, we use the most advanced tunneling techniques that are available in the world to try to minimize the cost.

Ms. NORTON. I recognize some of this may be the good economy,

but it’s very nice to hear about underbudget other than cost overruns for a change. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. Anything anyone wants to add

on the panel before we adjourn? I want to thank all of you for participating today. I want to enter into the record the briefing memo

distributed to the subcommittee members. We will hold the record

open for 2 weeks from this date for those who may want to forward

submissions for possible inclusion, and these proceedings are

closed.

[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella and additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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