Metro Sees Future Among Young Workers

Quentin Langston, 15, left, and Patrick Allen, 19, clean a bus at the Bladensburg Bus Division in Northeast as part of Metro's Summer Youth Program. (Photos By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)

When Patrick Allen steps aboard a Metro bus nowadays, he stops for a moment to check out the number on its side. It often represents more than a ride.

"I know that I cleaned that bus yesterday," said Allen, a 19-year-old senior at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria. "But sometimes I feel frustrated because later, when I see it dirty, I know that I have to clean it the next day."

Allen is one of 122 young people spending the summer working at minimum wage for Metro, cleaning buses and trains or doing clerical work.

Metro's Summer Youth Program has existed for more than a decade. Normally, it provides summer jobs for about 50 young people ages 14 to 21. But this year, the program more than doubled in size under the direction of Dan Tangherlini, Metro's interim general manager. As a teenager, Tangherlini spent two summers picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management and two summers working for the Massachusetts Department of Highways.

"I was part of a road crew," he recalled. "I picked up trash, filled potholes and painted lines on the street. There is a sense of fulfillment when you work, besides knowing that there is the paycheck connection."

And, he added: "I hope they learned what I learned. I will never throw a piece of trash on the ground again."

Dan Tangherlini also hopes to expose as many youths as possible to Metro out of his own self-interest. Over the next three years, about 30 percent of Metro's workforce will be eligible for retirement. The transit authority will need to hire replacements and hopes to attract some of the youths who take summer jobs through the program.

Metro had set aside 225 positions for the program, and officials say they would have hired more if they had been able to do so. The youths applied for the jobs through local government employment offices in the District, Maryland and Virginia. Cassandra Graves, Metro's employee program coordinator, said that by the time the jobs were offered, some youths had secured summer employment elsewhere.

The jobs began at the end of June and run through mid-August. Depending on the age of the youths, workweeks vary from 20 to 30 hours. Participants report to various Metro facilities, including the Shady Grove Yard in Rockville, the Branch Avenue Yard in Suitland and the Four Mile Run Maintenance Facility in Arlington. Each is assigned a mentor and supervisor.

"The mentors who work with them really care about them, and it's not just about the work issues but their day-to-day life," Graves said.

At the Bladensburg Bus Division in Northeast Washington, mechanic Truham McCray supervises 11 youths.

"We normally don't give them the dirtiest buses to clean," McCray said. The summer jobs program, he said, "gives them a chance to see what real life is about."