Metro's Steady Navigator

Catoe Gets Good Marks as Crisis Manager in Tumultuous First Year

Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr.'s cellphone often starts beeping at 5 a.m. Many of the alerts inform him of routine track maintenance. But for the past year, far too many have been about broken-down trains, track fires and other problems that delay riders.

"If I get to 6 and there's no beep, it's a good day," he said.

It has been a turbulent first year for the chief of the nation's second-busiest rail and fifth-busiest bus system. He began the job after several train and bus accidents that resulted in employee and pedestrian deaths. Track fires and mechanical breakdowns led to a steady decline in the subway's on-time performance. An inherited budget crisis triggered an agency overhaul, layoffs and the largest fare and fee increases in Metrorail's 32-year history.

"Some honeymoon," Catoe told Metro board members recently, summarizing his first 12 months.

The board, which recently completed Catoe's performance review, gives the Washington native generally high marks. But now that Catoe has finished "mucking out the stalls," as former board member T. Dana Kauffman put it, the real test will be whether he can move the agency forward, make change permanent and rely less on stopgap measures.

Catoe started a safety program to cut injuries and accidents by half within five years. He improved track maintenance, which has dramatically reduced debris fires. Rail personnel are replacing faulty parts blamed for some train breakdowns.

Much remains to be done. Catoe needs to quickly improve customer service and on-time performance. And he must plan for the future. The agency needs a new capital plan to replace critical infrastructure, including about 300 rail cars -- more than a fourth of the fleet -- that are more than 30 years old. He also faces a looming personnel crisis: 30 percent of Metro employees, including hard-to-replace mechanics, will be eligible to retire in two years.

The performance of Metro carries extraordinarily high stakes for the regional bus and train system and the metropolitan area. In a region with the second-worst traffic in the country, access to reliable mass transit is vital to easing congestion and for shaping population growth and development.

About 1.2 million passengers ride Metro on an average weekday, and Catoe has pledged to make Metro the country's premier transit agency.

He is the first to acknowledge that daily performance needs to improve.

"I'm not happy with the customer service we have, and I'm not happy with the reliability of service," he said. "I'm my biggest critic."

Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman, who became Metro board chairman Feb. 28, said real change will take time. "There was a lot of putting the house in order, and he's done a pretty good job of that," Zimmerman said.