FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010
KLMNO
EZ SU Report:Organizational failures plagueMARC system
Disabled train incident highlights systemic breakdowns
BY KATHERINE SHAVER The June breakdown of a
MARC train that stranded 1,200 passengers in sweltering heat without air conditioning “re- flects a series of organizational failures at multiple levels” of Maryland’s commuter rail sys- tem, according to an investiga- tion of the incident by the Mary- land Transit Administration. The 53-page report released
Thursday cited six key factors in the breakdown of the Penn Line’s evening Train 538 and the more than two-hour wait for help. Passengers reported trouble
breathing as some said tempera- tures inside the cars felt like more than 100 degrees. Ten peo- ple were treated by paramedics
from the train that passengers dubbed “the hell train.” The causes included an elec-
tric locomotive susceptible to breaking down in high heat, MARC and Amtrak managers failing to recognize passengers’ “deteriorating conditions,” and Amtrak crews focusing more on fixing the train than on helping those aboard, the report said. Amtrak crews, who operate
MARC’s Penn Line trains, did not keep passengers informed after the public address system failed and didn’t call for emergency help soon enough, the review found. Prince George’s County firefighters and paramedicswere summoned to the tracks near NewCarrollton by frantic 911 cell phone calls frompassengers. “Clearly we let our customers
down that evening,” said Mary- land Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley, who called for the review. The incident highlighted what manyMARC passengers describe
as deteriorating service over the past several years. Though pas- sengers say customer service has improved since June, some say the trains remain unreliable and are frequently late. Swaim-Staley said the review’s findings were not a surprise, as
training to remind Amtrak crews to focus on passengers, rather than train mechanics, during breakdowns. The state pays CSX Transportation $44.7 million an- nually to operate the Brunswick and Camden lines on CSX-owned tracks. It pays Amtrak $47 mil-
“Clearly we let our customers down that evening.” —Beverley K. Swaim-Staley,Maryland’s transportation secretary
the MTA discovered many of the problems immediately andmade some changes the next day. The MTAreportwas based on investi- gations of the June 21 incident by theMTA, Amtrak and consultant Booz Allen Hamilton. Changes include more fre-
quent maintenance to keep the electric locomotive engines cool- er, establishing “go teams” of MARC supervisors to respond to emergencies and additional
lion to operate the Penn Line on tracks that Amtrak owns. The Brunswick Line carries
passengers between Washington and points north and west, in- cluding Frederick and Martins- burg,
W.Va. The Camden Line connects Washington and Balti- more, and the Penn Line runs fromWashington through north- easternMaryland via Baltimore. MARC trains now have bull- horns in case the public address
system fails, and the MARC cus- tomer information line’s hours have been extended to 11 p.m., according to the report. To ease the strain on electric locomo- tives, the MTA is considering ways to add more frequent but shorter trains during the morn- ing and evening rush, the report said. Rafi Guroian, chairman of
MARC’sRidersAdvisory Council, praised the review for being “very truthful and forthcoming.” He said MARC has improved customer service since June, stocking trains with bottled wa- ter and setting up bus service more quickly when trains break down. However, Guroian said he was
disappointed that the review fo- cused more on responding to major breakdowns rather than preventing them. Aging electric locomotives need to be replaced, he said. Although MARC has added diesel locomotives to the Penn line, he said, they’re much
A slippery, slushy and slow day along snowy roads
Winter’s first storm causes minor crashes, shortens workdays
BY ASHLEY HALSEY III A fairly typical December
snowstorm glazed the region’s highways with a crusty white crud that caused scores of fender benders as people cut short the workday and many school sys- tems shut down early. In most places, there was too
little snow to plow and it landed on frozen pavement that caused chemically laced salt to work more slowly, transportation offi- cials said. Many roads in theWashington
area were pretreated as the storm advanced, but slippery condi- tions slowed traffic to a crawl on major highways and side streets alike. “Until you get more than a
couple of inches, it’s not effective to plow,” said John Lisle of the D.C. Department of Transporta- tion. “We saw this thing coming. We began pretreating a couple of days ago, and we had salt trucks out today by 10 a.m. When the road surface is frozen it takes more to melt the snow.” Joan Morris of the Virginia
Department of Transportation echoed Lisle. “Motorists think that pretreating will mean the road is going to be free and clear when it snows,” she said. “It does not. But it gives us a leg up when the snow begins falling.” Morris said VDOT doubled the number of trucks it had planned to deploy as the forecast worsenedWednes- day night. There was no evidence that
drivers had become any more snow savvy because of the repeat- ed and record-setting snowfall last winter. The Maryland State Police had recorded dozens of crashes by mid-afternoon. “They’re all minor in nature,
but there have been multiple crashes because of people going too fast,” said State Police Maj. Greg Shipley. “No serious injuries except for one up near the Penn- sylvania line.” In Virginia, state police had recorded 580 crashes statewide by noon, most of the slide-and- crunch variety, with fewresulting in serious injuries. The Loudoun County sheriff ’s office responded to 40 crashes — most involving vehicles that slid off the road or into another car, none with seri- ous injuries — and more than 25
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST Aman pushes a car on Route 1 in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County. In Virginia, state police recorded 580 crashes statewide by noon. 6
on
washingtonpost.com School closings, forecasts and more
For additional coverage of the snowstorm, updates
about the weather and photographs, check out the Capital Weather Gang’s blog and other coverage on
PostLocal.com.
“It’s moving at a crawl in some places. That’s a good thing, be- cause we don’t want people try- ing to go too fast in these condi- tions.”
School buses were back on the
roads by early afternoon, as most school systems closed early and canceled after-school activities. Federal offices remained open, but employees were allowed to leave early. One of those buses skidded
MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST NathanWood, 5, plays with freshly fallen snow in the
District.Many area schools closed early.
disabled or stranded vehicles as the storm swept in from the south. Cars poked along on Interstate
95 in Maryland, although the snow had been reduced to slush along the shoulders of much of it. “Traffic is heavy in a lot of
places because people are head- ing out from work early,” said Charlie Gischlar of theMaryland Department of Transportation.
down a hill in New Carrolltown. As city police were helping chil- dren from the bus, a driver crashed into a police vehicle. No injuries were reported, said Tanzi West Barbour, a spokeswoman for Prince George’s County schools.
halseya@washpost.com
Staff writers Michael Birnbaum and Hamil R. Harris contributed to this report.
slower and causemore delays. “They’re coming up with
Band-Aid fixes rather than look- ing ahead 10 years,”Guroian said. Swaim-Staley said the MTA
focused on incident response be- causeMARC trains will continue to have “challenges” as long as they run on tracks that the state doesn’t control. She said theMTA has invested $200 million in MARC over the past couple of years, including buying 26 new diesel locomotives. “We don’t have additional
funding available at this point” to buy newelectric locomotives, she said. Ralign T. Wells, the MTA ad-
ministrator, said the agency has become proactive with Amtrak and CSX. During the June breakdown,
Wells said: “We kind of left our destiny to our contractor. That’s definitely not the way we’re do- ing business from this point for- ward.”
shaverk@washpost.com
Proposed schools’ budget freezes pay
sports from B1
pation last winter before the funding situation improved and the idea was abandoned. The shift in the funding bur-
den from federal to local is in part a reflection of how states have allocated stimulus money in the past two years. Many states, Maryland included, used federal money to substitute for funding they would have given under their own formulas. County Executive Rushern L.
“I definitely would need to hear more before I could support that.”
—Verjeana M. Jacobs, chairman of Prince George’s County Board of Education, on the proposed schools budget for fiscal 2012 that includes eliminating middle school sports.
Baker III (D) has called for an elimination of furloughs for school staff and other county employees, and that request is reflected in the budget proposal, meaning that salary expenses go up in all categories, as opposed to fiscal 2010, when employees were furloughed up to nine days. The change will cost about $24million, Stanski said. County politicians said it was
difficult to evaluate the proposal before they know how much money they have to spend. “We are committed to doing as
much as we can for our schools,” said Council Vice Chairman Eric Olson (D-College Park). “But there are a lot of unknowns.” Just how much money the
state will be willing to pay re- mains unclear. When the state legislature
convenes in the new year, it might discuss a proposal to pass some costs of teacher pensions back to counties. Basic state funding levels for education are also uncertain.
birnbaumm@washpost.com
B5
Gray keeps Lanier as police chief, picks controversial fire chief gray from B1
the selections. The spat is anoth- er signthatGray couldstruggle to govern asmayorwhile still fulfill- ing his “one city” vision that calls for greater collaboration among stakeholders. “I do think it’s damaged the
relationship, because relation- ships are built on trust,” said Ray Sneed, outgoing head of the city’s fire union, who said he learned about Ellerbe’s nomination from the media. “The only thing we askedfor is a seat at the table, and if we can’t get that, even during the transition stage, I guess it’s unrealistic to think we are going to get that during the governing process.” Fulfilling a promise he made
during the campaign, Gray also tapped a new deputy mayor for public safety, a position cut by Fenty (D). Paul A. Quander Jr., head of the Criminal Justice Co-
ordinating Council, will fill that position and oversee the new administration’s efforts to coor- dinate crime fighting and home- land security efforts. “My plan for public safety is
geared toward making sure peo- ple are safe and protected and feel safe and protected regardless ofwhere they live,work andplay,” Gray said while announcing his team at a news conference at the Reeves Center at 14th and U streets NW. Gray’s nomination of Nathan
caught some of his closest advis- ers by surprise. In recent weeks, many Gray advisers had predict- ed that he would pick an African American or a woman to replace outgoing Attorney General Peter Nickles. But Gray said his friend, pow-
erhouse D.C. lawyer Robert S. Bennett, recommended Nathan to him. Gray, who met Nathan twoweeks ago, saidhediscovered
thatNathan “has a stellar reputa- tion” and “record of accomplish- ment.” From1994 to 2007,Nathanwas
a senior partner at Arnold & Porter, specializing in white-col- lar criminal defense. He served on contract as an adviser to the House judiciary panel in 2007 as the committee pursued an inves- tigation of the Bush administra- tion’s firing of several U.S. attor- neys. Nathan continued to focus on
that issue after Pelosi named him House counsel later that year.He filed a high-profile lawsuit against White House officials Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten to compel themto testify. “He’s very bright, very hard-
working and has great interper- sonal skills,” Perry Apelbaum, staff director and chief counsel on the House Judiciary Commit- tee, said of Nathan. But some Gray friends and
supporters were baffled by Na- than’s nomination. They are pri- vately questioningwhyhedidnot choose a minority or someone with more experience in local government. “The job requires somebody
who has a little bit more knowl- edge, history and background with the District,” said one Gray adviser, who asked not to be identified to speak freely about the matter. “And many of us certainly expected a black or a Hispanic or an Asian would get the job.” Gray’s nominee for fire chief,
who is black, could be equally controversial. Ellerbe, a former deputy fire
chief who worked for the depart- ment for 27 years, was embroiled in conflict last year after it was discovered that hewas still aD.C. fire department employee though he had taken a job as fire chief in Sarasota, Fla.
The arrangement wasmade so
that Ellerbe, 50, could collect his pension immediately upon his retirement instead of deferring his benefits until age 55. Ellerbe resigned from the department after his arrangement was re- ported by theWashington Times. On Thursday, WTOP radio also reported that Ellerbe has contin- ued to take a tax deduction on a home he owns in Southeast Washington, though he’s been living full-time in Florida. At the news conference, Eller-
be pledged that he would quickly clear up the tax issue. Council member Phil Mendel-
son (D-At Large), head of the Committee on Public Safety, said he has “been through” the issues surroundingEllerbe and is “satis- fied” that they won’t be a major barrier to his nomination. Mendelson said he was also
happy that Lanier, one of the city’s most popular public fig-
ures, will stay in her job. But Kristopher Baumann,
head of the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge, said “rank and file” officers are “furious” that Gray ignored their advice that she be ousted. “He didn’t come talk to us
about it, and he damaged a rela- tionship, maybe permanently,” said Baumann, who added that Lanier has mismanaged the de- partment. In an interview, Lanier said
that she’s optimistic that her relationship with the police union will improve during the Gray administration. Lanier also praised Gray’s decision to tap Quander as deputy mayor for public safety, saying “there could be no better pick.”
craigt@washpost.com
Staff writersMike DeBonis, Ben Pershing and Allison Klein contributed to this report.
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