|
|
|
 |
Center Executive Director Jack Clark Testifies on Importance of Cooperatively Creating a Just Safety Culture
On March 25, Transportation Learning Center Executive Director Jack Clark testified on safety culture at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) safety hearing organized by Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689.
Clark's testimony was based on
Improving Safety Culture in Public Transportation, a report the Center helped write for the Transportation Research Board's Transit Cooperative Research Program (Report 174) as well as FTA's Transit Rail Advisory Committee on Safety (TRACS) report on Safety Culture to the US Secretary of Transportation. Jack outlined some of the key characteristics required for a safety culture in transit at Washington Metro. Among the indicators he cited were
encouragement to report safety problems and share data about safety, an
organizational commitment to
continuous learning and
improvement and a just culture that holds people accountable for reckless actions but avoids punishing people for unintentional errors.
While the TCRP Safety Culture report included a detailed case study on significant improvements to safety culture at Washington Metro, those improvements were overshadowed by the January 12 accident on the Yellow Line where a passenger died from smoke inhalation. Clark's testimony noted that the Center is in the
culture change business and that successful culture change needs to come from a commitment from the top leaders of the local agency and union that reaches down throughout the organization and workforce. He concluded by noting that having Local 689 President Jackie Jeter and WMATA Interim General Manager Jack Requa leading the hearing together could mark a new beginning for a positive safety culture at Metro.
The hearing also featured testimony from other labor leaders and from Metro passengers. The most powerful testimony came from a panel of Local 689 members who are
frontline workers at WMATA. A train operator, a paratransit driver, a station manager, a power technician and a bus driver each explained in gripping personal terms their encounters both with hazards on the job and with failures within the Metro system to promptly address their situations and remedy unsafe conditions. Interim GM Requa acknowledged their testimony, thanked them and said that Metro needed to do better in listening and responding to its employees.
Read Jack Clark's Full Testimony |
Contact Jack Clark
|
As early spring softens into the tourist season, one of New Mexico's prized connections to the Midwest and Pacific Coast appears safe at last.
Amtrak will stick with its existing route of the Southwest Chief passenger train that makes stops in the New Mexico towns of Raton, Las Vegas, Lamy and Albuquerque, a company spokesman said in an interview.
|
|
International Transportation News
|
Seoul's public transportation pass (PTP) system, which allows passengers to travel between Seoul and Gyeonggi Province using all types of public transportation, has been recently named the world's best public transportation system, and continues to spread around the world.
|
After moving to Washington from Akron, Ohio, six years ago, Katie Reed and her husband, Brian, happily ditched their two cars to live in Chinatown, where they enjoy walking to restaurants and shops. So when she searched for a new job two years ago, Katie Reed, 32, considered it "critical" to find one on a Metro line. She also wanted to walk to lunch and after-work errands.
|
Transit officials from New York City and other metropolitan areas are offering advice to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on how it might avoid the problems that crippled the Boston-area during winter's record-setting snowfall, including the use of outside contractors to help clear snow after storms.
|
Building new transit infrastructure is expensive, difficult and time consuming, but America's cities need more of it. Philadelphia especially has a very limited subway-elevated system. (For those unfamiliar, just two lines run along main north-south and east-west corridors.) Philly does have an extensive regional rail system, with three lines that only run in the city limits through dense neighborhoods otherwise only served by bus. But that rail service is infrequent, and prohibitively expensive for many riders.
|
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) has officially kicked off CTfastrak, the state's new bus rapid transit service utilizing a fleet of hybrid diesel-electric buses. As Allison Transmission Holdings Inc. announced in February, the state DOT will operate more than 40 Allison Hybrid-equipped buses under its CTfastrak service.
|
Last week was George Dorn's last stop after a half century of driving city buses and trains. Thursday, the 78-year-old made his final two-hour CTrain run from Bridlewood to Tuscany and back, before turning in his Calgary Transit badge for good. Fittingly, for the man who retired as the longest serving employee in the city's history, it was Badge No.1. "Every day was an adventure," said Dorn.
|
After a year-long tour to more than 100 communities across the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has submitted a six-year, $478 billion spending bill to Congress. The question is, how much of that will go to airport infrastructure? The GROW AMERICA Act calls for increasing investment in surface transportation by 45 percent, and supporting millions of jobs repairing and modernizing roads, bridges, railroads and transit systems in urban, suburban, and rural communities.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
