The reason is simple. It was completely hijacked by a union who turned themselves into a "good old boys club" for people from the poor neighborhoods who were born and raised in DC and educated in it's horrifically bad public school system.
The union once treated the management as the enemy, but once there was no more money left to squeeze from the system itself, they began treating the riders as the enemy. Fares were raised every 6 months by the time I left, and the system continued to degrade.
The racial statistics of the system are clearly indicative of a racial bias in hiring which is a direct result of the good old boy hiring system.
New mechanics are iced out in the same way the new managers were by the salary doubling overtime culture the employees practice. Because to them, a single mechanic working 12 hour shifts is better than two mechanics working 8 hour shifts, despite the former costing the same and doing far, far less than the latter to keep the system operational.
I support unions in the private sector. But my experience dealing with the DC Metro has made me loathe them in any public monopoly where consumers have no way to choose a competitor when the union gets out of hand and starts siphoning money from them.
My favorite, glaring example which is a tiny sliver of what occurs courtesy of the union:
A bus driver, several years ago, randomly pulled his bus over when he saw a person in a "McGruff the crime dog" costume talking to children about drugs. He assaulted McGruff, and then got back on his bus and continued operations.
The union forced the WMATA to rehire him, WITH BACKPAY. He still works there, serving the public. He also had a previous felony record.
http://wjla.com/news/local/metro-employee-police-officer-acc...
It boggles the mind that someone who is collecting fares from ticket machines can simply pocket the money without anyone noticing for a long time.
That is so true. I hate to say it and it is solely based on behaviors and actions, but the mentality of the people with Metro is atrocious, at absolute best. They move like sloths, if you can get them to acknowledge you, yell and scream while talking to each other and totally ignoring things they should be doing ... let alone could be doing, know essentially nothing but giving you information to go somewhere else, and have absolutely no care to assist anyone with anything without being compelled to ... it's abysmal! The worst part about it is that it is an absolutely horrific image for both DC, the USA in general, and especially the black American community of our whole country.
If you want to see one of the sources of bad impressions of black people in America go observe Metro staff or interact with them through their customer service line. I don't even think people quite grasp the damage to the global impression of black Americans the Metro does. There are millions of tourists from all over the globe that come to DC and ride the Metro and I can tell you from first hand experience hearing from many of them; the rude, lazy, unfriendly, boorish mentality of Metro staff sticks with people and they take it home and tell tales of how disgustingly crude American black people are base on their Metro experience.
I mean it's so bad if I didn't know any better I would have thought the Metro system was a plot by some racist group to spread hatred for black people by hiring the worst people imaginable to make black people look bad.
Is it the union's fault that Metro's estimates on Silver Line ridership were way off? Or that newly ordered 7000-series train cars are not up to spec? Or dangerous overcrowding on certain platforms?
The ridership numbers were impacted by the overall decline in ridership that the union created. Commuters in the Silver Line corridor have a choice, and they all are well aware of how unreliable the metro is. The funneling of the silver line through already overcrowded and poorly managed Orange Line stations didn't help.
Overcrowding on platforms: too few trains in operation due to the union hiring too few mechanics
Silver Line ridership below projections: the locals don't trust metro because it is unreliable because of poor management, too few hires at operator and controller level, because of the union.
7000 series cars not up to spec: Not the union's fault. But good luck hiring smart people at metro. The culture is toxic and nobody wants to work there.
Vaughn reduced Brim's penalty to a 30-day suspension and awarded him back pay for the rest of the time. Farbstein did not know the value of back pay awarded in either case."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06...
When the New York subway has a bad day, you're 20 minutes late. When Metro has a bad day you can be 1-2 hours late.
It's also pretty lousy on weekends, especially if you have to switch lines it can be 5x slower than a car.
The BART sucks too, don't get me wrong. But the DC Metro is simply AWFUL compared to NYC, and it has far less tracks to maintain.
[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/this-is-why-the-new-york-city-...