Wiedefeld was a plague on Metro
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Anonymous
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My family cut down on metro use because it became unreliable. My kids don't travel to school that way anymore.
I am sure there were issues before, but Wiederman cut the hours and service so much, that it dropped out of our plans |
Anonymous
| It's so insane that they let driver certifications lapse, I don't know what to say. |
Anonymous
| It's a pension plan that also happens to operate a transit system. |
Anonymous
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Not here to defend Wiedefeld because Hogan fired him for being an incompetent manager at BWI so the area Democrats thought they would stick it to Hogan by putting him in charge of WMATA.
However it’s also important to remember that when he took over WMATA, track fires were a daily occurrence and when it was hot trains could not operate due to track warping because there was criminal fraud in the track inspection unit where they were falsifying records. The truth is that Metrorail in particular had been on a slow motion train wreck since 2008 when ridership peaked. Sure people can point to the quality of the staffing, however the neglect starts with the politicians who have destroyed the institutional capacity of WMATA so that they could use the agency for their own purposes, whether it was blatant corruption or serving their political ends, like prioritizing late night service and expansion over maintenance. At some point the deferred maintenance comes home to roost and here we are. Politicians absurd the agency and riders without accountability and now we see the consequences. |
Anonymous
Not a great comparison. Many people are still working from home that used subways. Those that are not are more likely to drive then before for safety and they are replacing former drivers who now telework. Completely different audience then planes. |
Anonymous
Metro closed its pension plan to non- drivers in 2007. It closed its defined benefit plan to all in 2012. In 3012, the union has what is called a defined contribution plan which requires 2-3% contributions from the employee. It’s like the feds pension for new employees, it’s not as great as you think a pension should be and it’s only for those in the union. All other employees receive a 407 match up to 7% of their salary. Metro was famous for hiring prior military and they ran the company like the military for decades. Funding was erratic and in the early days when Metro made money, Metro Board would not allow reinvestment back into the system. The varying jurisdictions demanded their share of the profits. Anybody that runs a business knows that if you don’t reinvest in the early days, it will eventually come back to haunt. Metro was run by politicians and military men and we now know how well that turned out. |
Anonymous
You have not addressed the question of why people who are not working from home reluctant to take Metro. Second, air travel is a great metric because it shows that people are willing to undertake a similar behavior of rising in a closed compartment with strangers for a long period of time. Third, it points to an important factor for that is likely driving working from home: people hate commuting via public transit and particularly Metrorail. It’s not just COVID that is keeping people out of offices, if they are willing to travel by air and go to restaurant, etc. who are not working from home willing to drive |