Metro loses one of its own as the pandemic continues

A Metro employee in the Rail Operations Control Center recently passed away after falling ill with the virus that causes COVID-19. While the agency now reports 308 employees that have had confirmed cases, 270 of whom have recovered and returned to work, this was the agency’s first loss of life.

“This is a message I hoped I would not have to send,” wrote Metro General Manager Wiedefeld in an internal memo to employees on Friday, August 21. “Overnight, we lost a valued member of the Metro family who succumbed to COVID-19.” A short statement posted on Metro’s COVID-19 data page said grief support counselors would be available to any employees who might need someone to talk to.

The eight-year veteran of Metro started out as a bus operator, according to the Post, before moving into the Rail Operations Control Center first as a rail controller and later as Assistant Superintendent. Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel told the Post the employee was last on-site in the ROCC one month ago.

Addressing safety issues on transit has been a concern for the agency, community, and the region. Here’s a timeline of how the agency has adjusted practices and procedures since the pandemic first struck.

Metro put employee safety first, over service

Metro has said the actions it has taken during the COVID-19 pandemic prioritized employee safety rather than maintaining transit service for the public.

The agency activated its “Pandemic Task Force” on January 29, 2020 and began reducing bus and rail service on March 16 so fewer employees would have to be out in the field.

Through August 13, the agency had bought “nearly 30,000 gallons of disinfectant, 75,000 gallons of hand sanitizer, nearly 2 million pairs of gloves, and nearly 3 million face masks to keep employees and customers safe…”

Transit service was cut back far enough early on in the pandemic that only half of Metro’s operators would be needed on any one day to run the trains and operate the buses. If one group had a COVID-19 outbreak, the thinking went, the other half wouldn’t be affected and could continue to run service.

Metro protocol through the pandemic has been to close rail stations and other facilities for cleaning whenever the agency learns of a new COVID-19 case.

The agency reported 516 “responsive cleaning” events through June, with 192 occurring in May. Recurring cleanings at rail yards, bus garages, and at administrative buildings would begin occurring monthly as of August.

The response at Metro’s ROCC

A different operation was implemented for employees in Metro’s Rail Operations Control Center. The control center has a very limited number of staff which oversee the operation of and keep trains running across the network’s six lines.

With just 26 controllers as of May split across three shifts working 24x7, having to quarantine just a handful of controllers could wreak havoc. Wiedefeld suggested in an opinion piece in May that Metro is “vulnerable to shift-length closures” if “even a few people who work in proximity [at the ROCC] need to quarantine.”

Beginning around March 18, controllers in the ROCC alternated work locations between each shift, switching between the primary control facility in Maryland and the backup in DC. Switching control centers every eight-hour shift would allow Metro to disinfect “keyboards, headsets, microphones, screens, and other critical equipment in the control center.”

As Metro began shifting into service restoration planning, they stopped alternating ROCC locations and consolidated rail operations back into the primary facility. On July 19, the last shift of controllers temporarily working out of Metro’s backup rail facility in DC handed over control to their counterparts in Maryland, ending four months of one of maybe Metro’s most unique rail control challenges.

Metro spokesperson Sherri Ly offered the following statement via email:

Metro has worked tirelessly with the full support of the unions representing Metro’s employees to protect our workers. Unfortunately, the virus is still circulating through community spread. You’d be hard pressed to find a transit agency that has done more to keep employees safe and to suggest otherwise is simply not appropriate. The ROCC is cleaned and disinfected a minimum of three times a day with EPA approved disinfectants and in compliance with CDC guidelines. It is also deep cleaned weekly by a third-party contractor. We takes [sic] seriously any safety concerns from our employees and have not received any complaints.

Of course, the coronavirus has impacted transit agencies across the country. The Post reported in May that some 10,000 Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) workers had been quarantined during the pandemic. The New York Daily News reported that the MTA lost 126 workers to COVID-19 between March 26 and June 8. And the death of transit workers isn’t isolated to the east coast.

Metro continues to remind bus and rail riders that masks or face coverings are required while onboard. Social distancing “may not be possible on every train and bus” and the transit agency suggests riders may want to change when they travel to catch a more empty bus or train.