MTA Review Finds Safety Problems

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rail system, the scene of 64 deaths since 1990, including one on Friday, is troubled by maintenance, safety and oversight problems that could endanger passengers, according to a new audit by state inspectors.

The 111-page review was completed by the Public Utilities Commission this month and is based on repeated PUC inspections of the MTA’s network of roughly 60 miles of track and operations during the summer of 2001. The PUC judged a dozen departments, including maintenance facilities, record-keeping, operations and safety.

The PUC’s consumer protection and rail safety division, responsible for oversight of California’s train network, found that the MTA failed to meet standards or needed significant improvements in 29 areas. The MTA has until early January to show that it is complying with the PUC’s ordered remedies.

MTA officials contest the audit’s findings, saying the review is flawed in being based on inspections made a year ago. Anticipating the PUC’s authorization of the audit, the general manager of the MTA’s rail operations, Gerald Francis, wrote last month to the PUC to say that most of the problems brought up in the review have either been fixed or are being swiftly dealt with.

In a recent interview, Francis said that riders need not worry. “In no way does this affect our public safety with our passengers on the rail system,” he said. There’s nothing the MTA is doing that is threatening “the day-to-day safety of our customers.”

PUC auditors agree that the MTA appears to be taking steps toward remedying the problems. But they say the volume of violations raises questions about the MTA’s commitment to safety.

PUC’s director of rail safety, Richard Clark, said he was concerned that the MTA, the nation’s second largest transit agency, is not “making safety enough of a priority.”

Tom Rubin, a transit expert and former MTA official, agreed. “These findings are not good at all,” he said after reading the audit. “The sheer number of inconsistencies is very much a concern.”

The audit shows vehicle maintenance to be one of the biggest areas of concern. The 17-mile Red Line subway’s maintenance facility was found to have “unacceptable problems.” A random check of eight Metro Red Line subway cars found three with maintenance problems such as loose, wobbly or misplaced train parts.

In another check, auditors found that four of six Red Line cars they looked at had exceeded by more than 20% the maximum number of miles driven before getting maintenance inspections.

A check of several rail cars on the 20-mile Green Line found one train with brake problems.

In one instance, a worker without clearance to operate a train piloted a car and damaged a switching system, the audit found, adding that the MTA’s rail operations division had failed to investigate that incident. Time and again, the MTA failed to train and certify workers correctly, the audit found. Most maintenance workers examined by auditors “had not been retrained or recertified for the last two to four years,” or had expired certifications, a problem that also extended to rail controllers.

On the MTA’s rail system, the responsibility of these workers is akin to that of air traffic controllers, only it involves guiding trains across a system that snakes through streets and underground tunnels.

The review found that, of the five controllers reviewed, four did not have up-to-date certifications.

The MTA’s fatal-accident rate has long been of concern to PUC regulators. On Friday, a 16-year-old girl was killed by a train in South Los Angeles. Sixty-two accidents occurred on the 22-mile Long Beach-to-Los Angeles Blue Line, most of them involving cars or pedestrians hit by trains at or near intersections, according to the MTA. A PUC report used 1998 as a benchmark and found that, in that year, more people had died on the Blue Line than on California’s four other light rail systems combined.

The commission also found fault with the way the MTA investigates its accidents.

For example, the rail auditors criticized the MTA for not performing timely follow-up inspections, also known as “ride checks,” of train operators who have been involved in accidents. Such follow-ups, which are to be done two weeks after accidents, are seen as a crucial way of finding out if an operator is driving the trains safely.

After looking at the Blue and Green Line light railways, the auditors said: “The records showed that 37 light rail train operators, with one or more accidents, did not have the post-accident ride checks within the specified time periods.... “

Some operators involved in accidents as far back as January 1998 had never received such checks, the audit added.

Turning its attention to a similar audit of the MTA’s rail network produced in 1998, the PUC noted that it had told the transit agency to address 20 safety issues.

The PUC said the MTA had failed to remedy seven of the issues, including a demand that PUC staff play a larger part in investigations and that evaluations of rail workers be “expanded and strengthened.”

Transit experts said the audit needs to get the highest order of attention from the MTA for several reasons.

In addition to the potential risk to passengers, safety questions could damage the MTA’s efforts to persuade state and national politicians to approve multimillion-dollar funding packages that the agency needs to pay for several big-ticket transit projects.

The MTA is still fighting the lingering effects of construction mishaps and cost overruns that plagued the agency as it created its rail system in the 1990s.

Also, the MTA plans next July to start running the 14-mile Gold Line light railway, connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena.

After community groups voiced concerns over safety, the PUC in May narrowly granted final approval to the line’s construction.

But the PUC said it would closely monitor the Gold Line and could order changes, such as requiring that parts of the line be rebuilt, if there are repeated serious accidents.

Clark, the head of the PUC’s rail safety division, said his commission hopes that the MTA will take the findings seriously.

“We certainly have [the MTA’s] attention with this report, and we should have ... because these are very serious concerns,” he said. “They say they have in many cases directed staff to make changes. But we will see. We need to see where the rubber meets the road as to what the future compliance is.”