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muellman t1_jeaf3tf wrote

Get the employees and more importantly management of each department of Metro to work well with those in other departments.

Having dealt with WMATA for my job, my greatest wish would be for employees of one area to have some idea of what those in others are doing. From maintenance, to ops, to engineering, to planning, each department is so compartmentalized that when someone comes up with a better idea for safety or efficiency, it's rarely known by employees elsewhere in the organization. The best recent example was the new inspections of the 7000 series wheelsets in December 2021 following being pulled from service--an inspection was developed, but the maintenance people weren't taught how to do that, and then Metro quickly pulled the 7000 series back out of service (for months). There's some really dedicated and smart people there, but much of what they do doesn't get disseminated around.

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Cooking_with_MREs OP t1_jeajv9f wrote

>much of what they do doesn't get disseminated around.

I get this sense too as a customer. WMATA is a massive tri-jurisdiction system, and folks in administration* don't seem to have much of an idea of what workers and customers do day to day in the system.

Having a cool acronym for Better Bus Service (BBS) or Improved Lighting Initiative (ILI) or "increasing cleanliness by 85% systemwide" doesn't mean jack to customers who wait 15 minutes instead of 20 for the next bus, or see burnt out bulbs all over the system, or dirty elevators every day.

* The one exception to admin issues would be Randy Clarke and one of the Commissioners (I don't recall her name) who seem to actually be using and in the system every day.

I worked at Wal-Mart and as horrible as that company is department managers were out in the store every day if only for an early-morning walk-through. How many admins can say they are in or use the system every day?

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