(The following story by Ann Scott Tyson appeared on the Washington Post website on July 27, 2010.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. The announcement by the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday on the likely cause of the June 2009 Metro crash might have major safety and financial implications for transit systems nationwide.

Federal investigators have focused on the failure of Metro's automatic train-control system in the accident, in which one train slammed into the back of another that was stopped north of the Fort Totten Metro station in Northeast Washington. The accident killed a train operator and eight passengers, injured scores of others and caused $25 million in damage.

But the NTSB meeting Tuesday is expected to go well beyond a narrow conclusion on the causes of last year's crash, both because of the spate of accidents that have plagued Metro and possible consequences for other subway systems, according to Metro and NTSB officials.

"My expectation is this will be broader than the usual technical report," said Mortimer Downey, a federally appointed member of Metro's board of directors. The NTSB report "could well go beyond [the crash] to talk about general safety concerns."

Questions remain about how Metro would carry out the recommendations, which the NTSB makes without regard to cost and has no statutory power to enforce. The mission of the NTSB is to conduct objective investigations to determine the probable causes of transportation accidents and to recommend ways to prevent them.

Metro is not required by law to implement the NTSB recommendations but has set aside $30 million in its capital budget for three years to carry out any changes, Metro Interim General Manager Richard Sarles said. But Metro officials acknowledge that the recommendations could involve much higher costs over a longer time period.

"Any recommendation will probably be a long-term effort" and would require Maryland, Virginia and the District to agree on a reprogramming of funds in Metro's six-year, $5 billion capital funding agreement, Metro Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal said.

Federal influence

The Obama administration is pushing legislation that would grant the Federal Transit Administration unprecedented regulatory authority over Metro and other public transit systems, but that remains stalled in the House.

Absent such authority, the FTA has reserved the right to revisit its approval for urgent Metro safety improvement projects, and to modify the list of projects, to make sure the spending is in line with NTSB recommendations, according to FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff in a letter to Metro this month. That list of projects includes $220 million worth of capital improvements and was expanded Monday to include approval for funding for Metro's procurement of 300 rail cars to replace the oldest cars in the transit agency's fleet.

"We've been getting more lip service than real service from Metro," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) said. "Metro must fully implement the recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board report," which will contain "lessons learned" for all the nation's transit agencies.

"Congress must also do its part by passing legislation that gives the U.S. Department of Transportation the authority to establish and enforce federal safety standards for U.S. transit systems and to make sure that Metro's budget focuses on safety improvements," Mikulski said.

Metro faces four open NTSB investigations, more than any other transit agency in the history of the NTSB, according to NTSB spokeswoman Bridget Serchak. "In the 42 years we have been around, no one seems to recall that we have had four open investigations on any transit agency," she said.

As a result, the NTSB probe has examined possible connections between the incidents and the overarching lack of a robust safety culture and oversight at Metro, which has the second-busiest rail system in the nation.

The NTSB rarely has the opportunity to explore safety issues at urban subway systems, Serchak said.

"This allows us to delve into [Metro] as an organization, as well as a broad brush opportunity to look at the transit community," she said. "We can only do things in conjunction with an accident."

Most accidents are less complex and involve fewer parties, Serchak said. But the NTSB held a wide-ranging three-day hearing in February to look at the Red Line crash and broader issues, such as how Metro identifies and corrects safety hazards and the adequacy of state and federal oversight. The hearing took sworn testimony from nearly two dozen witnesses, including a Metro engineer who acknowledged that Metro's automatic crash-avoidance system had failed twice before the June accident, causing near misses, despite Metro's initial claims that it was a freak occurrence. Metro's decision to mix brands of signaling equipment, despite the manufacturer's warning, could have caused the June crash, said a representative of the company, Alstom, at the hearing.

At the meeting Tuesday, federal investigators will present their final report. After questions and answers, the five-person board will conduct three votes: on the findings, the cause and the recommendations. It will then vote on whether to adopt the report.

"It's a jumping-off point for us to make recommendations to a whole series of folks," including not only Metro but the public transit community and federal regulatory organizations, Serchak said.

Issues raised earlier

The board issued several safety recommendations last year, urging Metro to inspect track circuits and install a real-time backup to the automated train-control system, and has advised other transit agencies to make sure they have adequate safety redundancy.

The board has also scrutinized Metro's maintenance of train-control components as well as its procedures for testing them. A Metro crew replaced a key piece of circuitry five days before the accident, but the equipment malfunctioned and Metro failed to detect the problem.

NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman has said she was disappointed in Metro's response to the early recommendations. "The safety board was very clear what the problem was very early in the investigation," she said in an interview on the eve of the June 22 crash's first anniversary.

Sarles said Thursday that Metro has moved aggressively to comply with the NTSB's recommendations.

Metro has instituted a twice-daily evaluation of track circuits and established tests to identify track circuits susceptible to the kind of failure linked to the June 2009 crash, he said. It is working on a real-time, 24-hour-a-day automatic track circuit monitoring system and plans to implement that in December, Metro said. Metro is also working on procuring an automatic train-control back-up system that would allow the agency to consider returning to automatic operations.

In response to earlier NTSB recommendations, Metro has begun installing rollback protection on its rail cars and guarded switches, which help keep the wheels on the track when the train switches from one track to another to decrease the risk of derailments, and has beefed up its safety office and oversight.

"We are committed to considering and following through on the findings and recommendations," Sarles said in a statement Monday.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010