Metro Chief Vows Better Bus Safety

Another problem is the relative inexperience of drivers. Industry experts say a bus driver needs three years of driving to become fully seasoned. At Metro, because of a high number of recent retirees, 52 percent of operators have less than three years experience. As recently as 1998, 10 percent of Metrobus drivers would have fit that description; by 2000, the number had risen to one-third.

Metro practice also encourages the most experienced drivers to work on the least-used routes by allowing operators with the most seniority to have first choice in choosing where and when they drive. In many cases, they do not pick the highest-ridership lines, such as those along major arteries in the District or ones that travel through higher crime areas. As a result, less-experienced drivers can end up operating routes with the biggest challenges.

Of the three recent fatal incidents, two drivers had less than two years' experience.

In his memo, Catoe urged bus operators to focus on the basics and safety, promised extra supervisors and training and said schedules would be adjusted, if necessary, even if that delays service. He also has ordered radar guns so street supervisors can keep a closer eye on speeding.

Metrobus has 72 supervisors assigned to the streets to monitor schedules and safety, but Catoe said the system needs at least double that number. During the day-long tour, only one supervisor, posted at the site of one of the recent collisions, was spotted.

Catoe also wants to get rid of a policy that requires all drivers to start as part-timers, a rule originally designed to cut costs but one that officials have criticized. "We are not attracting a broad enough base of applicants because of that requirement," Catoe said.

Starting salaries for drivers are about $15 an hour.

Discipline is also a concern, Catoe said. Bus operators with more than three preventable accidents within a year's time are automatically fired. Metro considers an accident preventable if the operator failed to do everything possible to avoid the collision.

But operators have complained about favoritism, and Catoe said his discussions with managers and operators lead him to believe that enforcement is inconsistent. "We should have a process that has standards for termination due to accidents and standards for terminations not related to accidents," he said.

Metro has no computerized way to review operators' driving records to spotlight potential safety issues, nor is there sufficient attention given to tracking Metrobus accident patterns to spot trends, Catoe added.

Metro officials have known the dangers of the intersection at Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where Sally Dean McGhee and Martha Stringer Schoenborn were struck by a Metrobus on Feb. 14. That accident was the eighth in two years at that intersection, but previous discussions between city and Metro officials went nowhere.

Two days after that accident, District transportation officials installed three new signs on traffic lights for vehicles heading northbound on Seventh Street. "Turning traffic must yield to pedestrians," the black-and-white signs say. City officials are also considering a left-turn arrow for vehicles turning onto westbound Pennsylvania Avenue, where the two women were killed as they walked in the crosswalk.

Staff writers Keith L. Alexander, Jerry Markon, Martin Weil and Clarence Williams and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.