From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Planning of SafeTrack Projects  

Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Mark Goldstein, Director,
Physical Infrastructure 

Related GAO Work: GAO-17-348: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit
Authority: Improved Planning of Future Rehabilitation Projects Could
Prevent Limitations Identified with SafeTrack
and
GAO-17-519T: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority: Improved
Planning of Future Rehabilitation Projects Could Prevent Limitations
Identified with SafeTrack

Released: March 2017

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's April
2017. When inquiries into Washington, DC's Metrorail system revealed a
number of serious safety issues, Metrorail implemented the SafeTrack
program. SafeTrack is a large-scale rehabilitation project that is
supposed to address these safety issues, as well as the backlog of track
maintenance. A team led by Mark Goldstein, a director in GAO's Physical
Infrastructure team, recently looked at safety and oversight issues with
DC's Metrorail. Sarah Kaczmarek sat down with Mark to talk about what
they found.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Those of us living and commuting in the DC area
certainly have become very familiar with the SafeTrack program, but for
folks outside the beltway, could you tell us a little bit more about
this program?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] Sure. DC's Metrorail is the second busiest metro in
the United States. It takes hundreds of thousands of riders every day.
The system was built a long time ago. Not as long ago as some of the
older systems in America, like Boston or New York, but certainly, still,
over 30 years ago. And so it has, over time, gotten a large backlog of
maintenance projects. And these occur because of funding challenges,
because of limited time to work on the track, and because at times there
has been a lack of a safety culture that Metro has been criticized for.
So, SafeTrack is an effort to try and improve the system in a very fast
and reliable way in order to improve performance in the system, both for
the tracks and safety, and for riders.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Now, SafeTrack is already underway but what did
your team find in looking at just how the project was planned?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] So, we found that the planning the project did not
go very well, that they didn't follow leading project management
practices. For instance, they didn't collect information about the
assets that they had and the impact that broken infrastructure would
have on their projects. They didn't analyze alternatives for
accomplishing these projects, looking at different ways they might
approach SafeTrack. And they didn't develop a project management plan
before they started, either. So, the problem was that without those
kinds of policies in place, it was very difficult for them to determine
before they began the project how best to accomplish it to meet their
goals at the lowest possible cost. In their defense, they said the
reason they had to approach it this way it was because there were
critical safety issues that they had to address, but still, had they had
a plan in place, many of the planning issues that they face probably
would not have happened.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, given some of these issues with the planning,
SafeTrack is underway. How is the implementation going?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] The implementation actually has gone pretty well.
SafeTrack has generally aligned with leading project management
practices that they did put in place. They're developing lessons learned
after every one of the surges. The surges are track-by-track to fix
specific places where they feel the critical infrastructure issues still
remain. And so, they've developed lessons learned that every time
they've done a surge, it's worked a little better. And so, I think we've
recognized that and I think the riders certainly appreciate that. But
they have done a lot of work in SafeTrack. They've replaced tens of
thousands of railroad ties and done a lot of other maintenance projects
that really were necessary to upgrade the systems in this kind of
emergency safety mode that they've been in.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And how long do you think that they'll remain in
this SafeTrack safety mode? Or when might that project wrap up?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] They've already indicated that there are additional
surges that will go forward; they haven't really said so much about how
many there would be. But it's important to know that SafeTrack is just
one part of the larger safety management program that they have
underway, and that they have to do a better job in implementing. As I
indicated, because of the funding problems that they've had over the
years, there really is quite a backlog, only some of which really has to
do with the SafeTrack. SafeTrack is really just for emergency kind of
projects that they need to stay ahead of so that more track and more
infrastructure doesn't fall into that category. 

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And have they been able to get the funding that
they need to fully invest what they're trying to do with SafeTrack, or
has funding been an issue there as well?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] Funding for SafeTrack has not been an issue. They
were able to access funds that they had. But for larger projects going
forward, WMATA has indicated that they do have significant funding
shortfalls that they are going to have to address.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Given all this context, what did your team
recommend in this report?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] So, we recommended that for future projects like
SafeTrack and for larger projects, generally, in the safety area, that
they put in place a number of different policies. These would include
using detailed data on the condition of their assets in order to develop
what their objectives are. You don't know what you have to fix if you
don't know what it is that needs fixing. They need to compare
alternative ways of doing it. There isn't just one possible way. They
can look at different projects in different kinds of ways and they can
align them together in ways that might make more sense, and then to do
them on a case-by-case basis. It could take longer and not be as
effective and not achieve multiple objectives, simultaneously.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Finally, what do you see as the bottom line of this
report, especially for all of our Metro riders out there.

[ Mark Goldstein: ] Well, I think SafeTrack is showing that Metro is
committed to safety and they are committed to a preventive maintenance
program. How much they can do at any given time remains to be seen given
staffing, tracking schedules, and funding that they have. They do need
to fix their lack of comprehensive planning and they do say that that's
something they're working on. And they need to work on their additional
safety needs that go beyond SafeTrack to make sure that there is a safe
Metro, a timely performance-driven Metro for all of the people in the
Washington Metro Area.

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watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.