Time for Metro Board Accountability (Updated)

Posted September 24, 2009, 11:51 p.m.

It is time for the Metro Board of Directors to be held accountable.

Currently, the unelected Board apparently answers to nobody. It is unclear exactly how its members are selected and how they can be removed. The public has no impact on their decisions and, because it’s not clear who picks the members, the public doesn’t really know who to complain to when the Board does something that we disagree with.

For example, the Metro Board today extended General Manager John Catoe’s contract for another three years. Catoe took over in 2006 and, as far as I can tell, has done absolutely nothing to stop the system’s precipitous slide. During his tenure, he continued his predecessor’s policy of ignoring NTSB recommendations and putting passenger safety at risk. Even though he came to Washington from the Los Angeles transit system, southern neighbor of San Francisco’s BART system (which has had a real fail-safe train detection system for decades), Catoe never thought of putting one in place here. He even had the audacity to claim that no such system existed.

In my humble opinion, Catoe and the Metro Board have blood on their hands because of their failure to take basic, common sense steps to protect riders before the deadly MetroRail collision in June. Don’t think it’s all that bad? Read up on what’s been going on.

Bottom line: Catoe and the Metro Board are completely out of touch with the taxpayers and Metro riders. It is time for new leadership.

CORRECTION 9/30/2009: This piece originally stated that John Catoe came to Washington from the San Francisco BART system. Catoe, however, came to Washington from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. I have corrected the error. Thank you to Brett Tyler of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for calling this error to my attention.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

It cannot be said often enough: Well-paying jobs don’t come from bailouts. They come from start-ups, which come from smart, creative, inspired risk takers.

The poor have the same basic pleasures as the rich, and the rich will always resent it.

I recommend that you improve your psychological bravery but say no to anything that has a strong chance of killing you.

The tragedy in all of this is the simple fact that the average tax-paying American was not given an honest and genuine choice. The voter finds himself enduring one party long enough to witness a whole series of travesties and then switches to the other party thinking he will get a substantial reversal of policy. But he doesn’t.

It may very well be that the Communists . . . are closer to [Christ] than those who see Him as a sentimentalist and a vague moral reformer.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

The most intense patriotism always flourishes in the rear.

A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.

Imagination is a good servant, but a bad master.

The know-nothings are, unfortunately, seldom the do-nothings.

I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.

The hunger strike is a purely moral weapon. It presupposes that the jailer has not entirely lost his conscience. Or that the jailer is afraid of public opinion.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?

There can be no higher international duty than to safeguard the existence and independence of industrious, orderly states, with a high personal and national standard of conduct, but without the military force of the great powers.

No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.