Metro Seeks Better Ways To Get Word Out to Riders
It was rush hour. Metro trains were stuck. Smoke, fire and a power failure had shut down 11 of 86 stations, mostly in Virginia, and shuttle buses dispatched to pick up stranded passengers didn’t know where to go.
Frustrated riders couldn’t get answers. At the Pentagon Station, more than 100 passengers followed one supervisor around, straining to hear shouted directions about which buses to board. The confusion drove Martina Schwartz to tears. “I asked him three hours ago how to get to Franconia,” she said. “I never got a response.”
For many who have ridden Metro, the scenario from the late August service meltdown was all too familiar. For years, customers have complained that train
Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. has promised to fix communications, adding his name to a list of agency chiefs who have vowed, unsuccessfully, to cure one of the agency’s largest and deepest ailments. At a board meeting last week, managers outlined a new take on the long-standing problem. Success, they said, will not be achieved by simply making station announcements comprehensible; it will require a complete culture change, from top managers to all 8,200 bus and rail operations employees.
By Lena H. Sun and Jonathan Mummolo

Leave a Reply
