Metro Is Ready to Bring Citizen Advisers Aboard

When Metro put out a call for riders to apply to join its first citizens advisory board this fall, riders answered.

So many, in fact, that it has turned out to be easier to be admitted to Harvard University this year than to snag a spot on the 21-member board. Four times easier.

Appointment to the board was harder than gaining admission to the University of Virginia. It was even more competitive, by a smidge, than being named a Rhodes scholar.

In all, 940 riders went online and filed an application for the Riders Advisory Council, the first such panel created in the transit agency's 29-year history. Metro's board of directors will formally appoint members to the council today, although the applicants whose names will be submitted for final consideration at today's meeting have already been informed.

"There's huge pent-up interest in Metro stuff," said Jack Corbett, co-found of the advocacy group metroriders.org. "These are people who want to be constructive. They don't want to just complain."

The Metro board voted to form the council as public pressure mounted in the past year for the system to become more transparent and accountable to its customers.

Hundreds of riders have been attending town hall meetings to share their concerns about the system, and Metro managers regularly receive thousands of calls from the public.

Applying for membership on the board wasn't exactly a snap.

Interested riders had to submit a fairly long application in which they outlined their commuting patterns and wrote two essays, one describing how they could contribute to the council and another explaining what improvements to the system they would seek if appointed. They also had to promise that, if chosen, they would commit to attending the council's monthly meetings, possibly for as long as three years.

The goal was to include a good cross section of regular commuters and occasional riders, as well as those who use buses, trains and MetroAccess vans for the disabled, said Debra Johnson, Metro's director of project communications. Johnson said applications came from across the region and included high school students, senior citizens and everyone in between.

The Riders Advisory Council will include six members each from Maryland, Virginia and the District and two at-large members. Board members from each area met with Metro staff members to review applications and select the names that will be put before the full board today. Another council seat is reserved for the head of Metro's Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee.

The nearly 1,000 applications submitted meant each rider had only a 2.1 percent chance of getting named -- making selection far more competitive than Harvard's 9.1 percent admission rate for the Class of 2009 or the University of Virginia's 37 percent rate.

Dennis Jaffe, a member of the Washington chapter of the Sierra Club, which pushed for the creation of such a council, said he was "astonished" by the number of people who responded. But the heavy interest, he said, is a sign that people have both a lot of complaints to air and a lot of confidence that the system can be better.

"If people were convinced that serving on the council couldn't improve something, they wouldn't have applied," he said.

A vocal critic of Metro's customer service, Jaffe said he has been told his name will be put before the board for appointment today. He said that indicates that the system will let the council take an active role.

Other active riders also said they have been told their names will also be submitted for the board's approval today. Although Corbett said he will not be named, the other founder of his group, Kevin Moore of the District, has been told he made the list. So, too, has Reston resident Stephen Cerny. Cerny also serves on a transportation citizens advisory committee for the Washington Area Council of Governments.

But for every person appointed, 47 will be denied a spot. Cerny, a lawyer for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said a co-worker from the next office also applied and has not been told she will be appointed. "It's somewhat awkward," he said.