Metro to cut service on some lines amid disagreement with safety watchdog over training

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Metro to cut service on some lines amid disagreement with safety watchdog over training

Jack Moore | [e-mail]

January 16, 2023, 1:58 PM

Some Metro riders will face longer waits for trains this week, after the transit agency’s independent safety watchdog ordered Metro to pull more than 50 train operators from service, saying they need more training.

Wait times for riders on the Blue, Orange and Silver Lines will increase from every 15 minutes to 25 minutes starting Tuesday and lasting through the end of the week and possibly longer, Metro announced. ... Metro says it has to cut service to comply with a Wednesday morning deadline to retrain operators.

In a separate directive, the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission also ordered Metro to pause a plan to reduce inspections of the transit agency’s 7000-series cars that would have allowed Metro to return more of them to the rails and improve service levels. ... During an online media briefing Monday, Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said the halt to its 7000-series plans means Metro service levels will not improve “for the foreseeable future,” adding, “and by foreseeable I mean months, not weeks.”

As it relates to training, the safety commission said in a memo last week it had discovered Metro was “deliberately ignoring” its own training standards, allowing operators to skip a required eight hours of initial hands-on training overseen by instructors on out-of-service trains. (Citing the ongoing 7000-series train shortage, Metro says it added those eight hours to the 30 hours of training that operators do with instructors on passenger trains).

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Jack Moore
Jack Moore joined WTOP.com as a digital writer/editor in July 2016. Previous to his current role, he covered federal government management and technology as the news editor at Nextgov.com, part of Government Executive Media Group.

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