More than 275,000 people ride the rails daily, and representatives from the District, Maryland and Virginia have come together, despite their sometimes divergent interests, to run the sprawling operation. It is, virtually everyone agrees, a regional success story. Metro has brought the area billions in tax dollars and thousands of jobs. In the last few months, the headlines have focused on a January accident that killed a train operator and the politics and issues at play as a new general manager is selected. Despite those issues, most transit officials say Metro's chief problems are fiscal.
Building is always more exciting than operating.
Metro faces substantial funding issues in the years ahead, and it stands in need of a more forthcoming spirit of support. Metro could be waiting a long time for that. Glendening's message to the agency was that it will have to help itself. Today a trainload of dignitaries will take a commemorative ride to that station from Farragut North, the same 4.6 miles with which rail debuted in 1976. What they will see is an area that missed the urban renaissance that Metro originally promised, and a corner of Washington that Glendening would say is still rife with possibilities.