Disabled Transit Accidents Increase
Driver Turnover Cited as a Factor
By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 13, 2006; B01
MetroAccess, the troubled curb-to-curb service for the disabled, is confronting a new problem: accidents.
The service recorded almost three times as many accidents from July 2005 to June compared with the same period the previous year, Metro officials said yesterday.
Transit officials said 245 accidents occurred last year. Of these, 203, or
83 percent, took place after MV Transportation took over MetroAccess operations in January. In the previous fiscal year, MetroAccess reported 90 accidents.
Fred Goodine, the agency's safety chief, said the increase was the result of "considerable turnover rate" among drivers and more diligent reporting of all accidents, including minor ones involving minimal or no injuries to passengers.
Officials noted that even though overall accidents increased, the number of accidents that resulted in serious injuries or damage in excess of $7,500 dropped dramatically during the first six months of this year, compared with the same period the previous year. In the first six months under MV, there were 14 serious accidents.
Steve Yaffe, the agency's chief operating officer for community transportation services, said the previous contractor reported only serious accidents, and he categorized much of what MV has been reporting as "stupid stuff, like clipping side mirrors."
Nonetheless, all of the roughly 600 MetroAccess drivers will be retrained in a special defensive driving course by January, officials said. MV is also tightening standards for hiring drivers. The annual percentage rate for driver turnover is "probably in the high 20s," Yaffe said.
MetroAccess provides rides for about 16,000 elderly or disabled people, most of whom live in suburban Maryland and Virginia. The board awarded a four-year, $204 million contract to MV last fall after repeated problems with its previous contractor. But after the company took over service this year, Metro was flooded with complaints about missed or late trips, circuitous routes, rude telephone staff and lost drivers.
Many key staff at Metro and MV have been replaced. Yaffe, who was hired this summer to provide better management and oversight of MetroAccess, said, "We're making strides, but we have a long way to go."
In his annual safety report to a Metro board committee yesterday, Goodine also said there were 41 rail passenger injuries in the fiscal year that ended in June, up slightly from 36 the year before. Bus collisions with people increased by 17 percent. There were 41 collisions in fiscal 2006, five resulting in deaths, compared to 34 collisions the year before. None of those involved deaths.
Noting that pedestrian accidents are a serious problem across the region, Goodine said the transit agency has been conducting safety blitzes with bus operators and pedestrians to increase awareness.
Serious crime is also rising in the rail and bus system, transit police told board members yesterday. There was a 4 percent increase in serious crimes, which includes aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts and robberies, during the first nine months of this year, compared with last year. The only exception was auto thefts, which dropped 18 percent.
From January to September, there were 899 serious crimes in the system, compared with 862 crimes for the same period in 2005. Aggravated assaults jumped 19 percent, to 81, for the first nine months of this year, compared with 68 recorded in the previous year.
Metro Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson said the increase in crime reflected trends in the region and the rest of the country. During the first nine months of the year, bus and rail ridership also grew by about 4 percent, she said.
At the same time, Hanson said, arrests were up more than 27 percent.
In other developments, Metro board members expressed little support for an idea to save on maintenance costs for escalators by replacing some short ones with stairs.
Metro, which has more escalators than any other transit system in the world, has struggled to maintain the expensive and difficult-to-repair equipment.
Some board members said that replacing escalators with stairs would put a burden on seniors and the increasing number of riders who travel with luggage.
C 2006 The Washington Post Company