Metro officials will seek disciplinary action against two employees who took an unauthorized contractor onto Yellow Line tracks near Eisenhower Avenue station and failed to follow safety protocol last week, causing a near miss incident when an oncoming train barreled in their direction.
The incident came less than a month after the Federal Transit Administration demanded answers from Metro officials on how they intended to improve protections for track workers at risk of being struck by passing trains.
Because of the May 18 “near-miss” — along with another incident Wednesday in which a train operator broke the speed limit in a work zone by 15 miles per hour — federal officials remain concerned that significant risks remain on Metro’s tracks.
Carol Carmody, chair of the Metro board safety committee who represents the federal government, said she spoke with FTA officials Wednesday about the two incidents. She said officials had been satisfied with Metro’s written response on how they planned to address roadway worker protection — until last week’s incident.
“They were ready to say, ‘Yes, we accept this plan.’ But then May 18 occurred. And then they thought, ‘Well, we’re not going to write and say everything is fine when this has occurred,’ ” Carmody said. “I think they see [Metro’s] response as excellent, but how do you account for this continuing problem? It’s a dilemma for all of us.”
Carmody said she has trouble understanding why “near-miss” incidents continue to be a problem.
“[Metro] has been very responsive to this issue … They’ve done training. They had a stand-down for all the workers,” Carmody said. “And yet, a week after the stand-down, these things happen. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand why training is not more effective … or why the workers are apparently not absorbing this.”
At the Metro board meeting, Lavin provided new details on how the incident unfolded. Two Metro workers accompanied an AT&T employee onto the tracks near the southern end of the Yellow Line. That was the first mistake, Lavin said. Although the Metro workers were properly trained to have access to the tracks, the AT&T worker did not have the required training and should not have been allowed onto the tracks while trains were in service.
The second mistake, Lavin said, occurred because the workers failed to follow new protocols on how to request access to the tracks. They radioed the Rail Operations Control Center and requested permission to step onto the tracks, indicating that they would step back onto the catwalk once they heard an approaching train.
But that practice — track workers using audio cues to get out of the way of approaching trains operating at full speed — is no longer allowed. Instead, workers walking on the tracks must have a flag person posted at the station preceding the work area, notifying train operators stopped at the station that they must lower their speed to 10 miles per hour in anticipation of workers who are on the tracks.
But the controller did not hear that the track workers’ request did not include a mention of putting a flag person in place at the station. The controller should have caught the mistake, Lavin said. Instead, she gave them permission to step onto the tracks. She has been suspended for 10 days.
“This is predominantly the responsibility of the roadway workers who were on the ground. They were properly trained on how they should have performed. They failed to follow that procedure,” Lavin said. “And the [Rail Operations Control Center] had a role in it, but in my mind, the ROCC’s role in this was minimal.”
The operator of the Yellow Line train had no warning that there would be workers near the Eisenhower Avenue station, and as she turned a corner, she saw one of the workers stepping onto the catwalk and out of the way of the train. She immediately stopped the train and radioed the Operations Control Center to alert them that there were unauthorized people on the tracks. Safety investigators said the train operator made all the right decisions and “found her not to be culpable in any way,” Lavin said.
The two workers on the tracks, however, have been suspended and are awaiting a decision on disciplinary action.
Lavin said Metro’s current procedures for protecting track workers are straightforward and “not too much to ask” for workers to follow.
Still, he said, it may take a while before new protocol — such as the requirement to post a flag person at a station for safety, or the new 10 miles per hour speed limit in work zones — becomes second nature for all staff members.
“These [incidents] are part of the culture that we need to change,” Lavin said. “So if you have, for 40 years, people behaving in a certain way, and you’re trying to change that, it’s a very difficult task to accomplish.”