Metro has barred safety monitors from tracks, records show

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Families of Metro Workers Killed on the Tracks

Since 2005, six Metro workers have been struck by trains and fatally injured while on the tracks. The most recent deaths took place in August and September.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

For Metro, the monitoring body is the Tri-State Oversight Committee, which has no employees, office or phone number. It also has no direct regulatory authority over Metro. Committee members work for local and state transportation departments, and much of their work is contracted out.

In its dispute with Metro, committee Chairman Eric Madison said that he thought the agency had inappropriately denied access to monitors and that he remained concerned about the "adequacy and effectiveness" of its safety program. Madison said in an e-mail Friday that committee members were working with Metro "to resolve this issue and hope to reach a solution soon."

Inspectors for the committee are looking to confirm a number of practices, including that all personnel on the tracks wear safety equipment, that they communicate properly with train operators and dispatchers, and that the operators slow their trains and sound their horns when they spot work crews.

Farbstein said Friday that committee members "can have access to the right of way with the trains in service or out of service as long as they have a safety escort."

In fact, Farbstein said, safety monitors were always allowed to walk live tracks with an escort. Told that her statement appeared to be contradicted by documents and official statements from the committee, Farbstein said: "I'm going to stick to what I said. I'm very comfortable with that."

Metro officials said that after this past summer's fatal accidents, they ordered a review of safety policies, mandatory refresher safety training for employees who work in the field and additional safety checks during track maintenance work.

Rail safety specialists across the country said that firsthand inspections are essential.

"I'm stunned, frankly," said Kitty Higgins, who served on the National Transportation Safety Board until August. "It raises doubts about what their real agenda is. The whole idea of inspections, if they are to have any credibility, is that they have to be random, they have to be unannounced and they have to be done during real-world working conditions."

Families of Metro workers killed on the tracks in past years reacted with disbelief.

"That just blows me away," said Betty Waldron, whose husband Michael's death in October 2005 helped prompt new safety rules to protect track workers.

"What are they trying to hide?" she asked. "They don't want to be accountable to the public. They think they are their own little private entity, and they are covering their behinds, and they don't want the public to know the ins and outs of what they are doing."

Gloria Brooks choked up when told of the dispute. Her son, Matthew, and another worker, Arvell Cherry, were hit and fatally injured by a train in November 2006 while inspecting tracks near the Eisenhower Avenue station.