A report card for Randy Clarke, Metro’s General Manager

When the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Board* hired Randy Clarke as WMATA’s new General Manager in spring 2022, it signaled a clear desire for a new direction for Metro. Just over 100 days in, has Clarke steered the agency into the right turn that WMATA needed? We graded him!

As many Washington-area students await their Term 1 report cards, we based our grades on the scale used by DCPS for elementary students: Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, Approaches Expectations, and Is Performing Significantly Below Grade Level.

How did Clarke perform this term?

Read on for how we arrived at these grades.

Leadership: Exceeds Expectations

Clarke has stepped into the breach, leading with vision and enthusiasm. Like a bus operator who gets behind the wheel when the bus is behind schedule and low on gas, Clarke’s shift began in the midst of two crises. The COVID-19 pandemic cut demand for mass transit dramatically, especially in the Washington region, which had the highest proportion of remote workers nationwide. WMATA now faces a $146 million deficit for fiscal year 2024, once the federal funds that propped up the system during the pandemic run dry.

As we’d expect, Clarke directed his staff to come up with possible financial fixes, including fare increases and higher subsidies from DC, Maryland, and Virginia (though not apparently the one we’d like to see most, road/congestion pricing, which NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning to raise operational funding.)

The second crisis was prompted by the sudden removal, and painfully slow return, of 7000-series trains due to safety concerns that may have sat unaddressed under the previous General Manager for years. Clarke and co. had to work with the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission (WMSC) on a protracted return-to-service process, clearly itching to get the trains back on track sooner. We agree with Clarke: trains are much safer than driving, no matter how you do the math. Forcing commuters to drive instead of ride became an increasingly hazardous calculation, which Clarke appreciates.

Service: Meets Expectations

Clarke has pushed hard to increase service in the face of extensive challenges. It’s a tough task, but riders can’t grade on a curve: providing transit service is what WMATA is supposed to do.

Rail service is finally getting better, with projections of returning to pre-pandemic levels starting in spring 2023. Until now, it hasn’t improved fast enough to meet demand. But after several months of wrangling over thresholds, measurements, timing, and regularity of inspections of the 7000-series trains, finally last week WMSC and WMATA came to an agreement that will double the number of trains available for service. Other things that have been holding back service, like maintenance work on the Yellow Line, also show signs of resolution.

The good news is that people do want to ride Metro again, perhaps with a boost from the $2 weekend/weeknight fares. There were fears of en-masse transit abandonment in the wake of the pandemic, and four out of five trips across the region still take place via private vehicle. But it isn’t quite carmageddon just yet, and after a rocky year, WMATA’s on track to get the region the service levels riders need.

Collaboration: Meets Expectations

Clarke must manage diverse stakeholders, who want many different things out of WMATA, and many staff seem to enjoy working with him. We encourage him to seek alternative responses to peer pressure on fare evasion.

A transit agency leader has more constituencies to deal with than a middle school rife with hormones, social pressure, and power grabs. His own home team of 15,000 staff members represent a diverse assortment of skill areas, beliefs, and incentives, which need to be wrangled into a compelling vision that motivates all of them. Echoing what we can glean from his appearances at staff skill tests and other events, Raymond Jackson, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, recently told Axios: “He’s a hands-on GM. The frontline workers see him all the time and I think that’s a good thing because you can really get a feel for what’s going on in the workplace when you’re out there with the workers.”

A lot of WMATA’s funding depends on DC, Maryland, and Virginia – three politically and socially diverse state-level jurisdictions – agreeing on the value of transit, which they don’t, exactly. For Clarke to keep state-level leaders on board, without losing sight of folks without a political voice, it calls for political adroitness and the ability to work collaboratively with varied preferences. The Board’s appointment last week of an Inspector General (who had served as interim IG for several months) may also help respond to skepticism about the agency’s commitment to transparency and accountability.

We think Clarke’s current focus on fare evasion is misguided. Given the confusing public data that backs it up, we feel it may have more to do with assuaging a disproportionate fixation among suburban jurisdictions–whose support, frankly, Clarke must win to ensure WMATA’s finances–than a core problem for WMATA. Given District students’ reliance on our transit system, the initiative may discourage students from attending classes if they’re worried about being intercepted. (DC’s Kids Ride Free program–administered by DDOT, not WMATA–looks a bit less generous when you consider that it’s basically a replacement for a school bus service, and most kids never see those cards).

Clarke’s assurance that staff and police officers will ensure kids get to and from school safely doesn’t fully reassure us: school attendance is an important issue, so why not have a clear policy for it? A better plan would be to find the regional approach to funding under-18 riders’ trips that Clarke says he wants to see. WMATA could then avoid the perilously different standards that apply to Maryland, DC, and Virginia-based kids when they ride.

Focus: Exceeds Expectations

Clarke rightly puts the spotlight on bus. Bus has been one of GGWash’s passions for the 14+ years we’ve been around. Buses currently move more riders than trains, many of whom are the same essential workers (remember that phrase? We all loved those folks for a while, and we still should) who kept our cities functional during the darkest days of the pandemic. But bus is always working against a history of underinvestment and low prioritization, in part because most of its passengers are lower-income and/or riders of color.

Clarke shows a clear appreciation for the potential of bus to transform how the region relies on transit, demonstrated in WMATA’s effort to transform bus service itself. WMATA’s Better Bus Network Redesign, following on from the 2019 recommendations of the Bus Transformation Project, is the agency’s first attempt to overhaul the bus network in decades This is a move that had been in the works for some time, but derives energy from executive support. Clarke seems to have bus reliability on the mind, commenting in a DCist article last Thursday about ghost buses (which appear on transit apps but not in real life) that “the idea that in 2022, our current software doesn’t allow us at a control center to delete a bus that is not filled in the schedule, and therefore it looks like what people call a ‘ghost bus,’ is not okay.” Maybe Metro has some proton packs in storage.

Getting the Silver Line extended out to Dulles, four years behind its scheduled delivery date, looks good for Clarke even if it was going to happen around now anyway. As one of the system’s less efficient lines overall, it’s not clear whether this was one of WMATA’s finest projects to begin with – and it may become more costly on a per-train basis now that it runs all the way out to Dulles. But the tracks–physical and figurative–were laid a long time ago. Now Clarke and his team are looking for ways to operate this service as efficiently as possible, perhaps leveraging access for the 19,000 Dulles workers who, with the right bus connections, could soon be able to take Metro to work.

Team spirit & crisis management: Exceeds Expectations

Clarke is going to bat for WMATA in its time of need, tackling the operational side with as much gusto as public relations.

We believe that to successfully lead WMATA, its General Manager has to be, more than anything else, a relentless advocate for public transit in the region. If WMATA’s going to emerge from tough times as the system we need it to be, the GM has to navigate extremely difficult tradeoffs, hold delicate conversations every day with powerful decision makers, and have the foresight and courage to take on big opportunities.

A firm belief in the overwhelming value of transit, coupled with the skills to speak for it nimbly and loudly, is a sine qua non.

Does Clarke possess these skills and beliefs? He’s been plain and adamant in communicating his view that the 7000-series trains are safe to ride, key for restoring rider trust. At least in some instances, Clarke has responded to criticism with the same focus as he has to praise, a welcome habit that cuts against WMATA’s historically reticent public face. He’s shown an unusual appetite for taking on rider concerns via social media and following up. And he seems joyous about riding, something that couldn’t be said about previous agency leadership.

Clarke tells a compelling story about transit that people in the Washington region need to hear. It’s hopeful, it’s reassuring, and it’s imbued with “can” instead of the constant drone of constraints we’ve become used to. Reportedly, staff have been asked to use the term “riders” instead of “customers.” When it comes to reframing public and political narratives around the value and nature of transit services, words matter.

Overall: Exceeds Expectations – a talented student with room to grow

As an overall grade, Clarke earns “Exceeds Expectations” in WMATA leadership. There’s room for improvement in managing stakeholders and getting service up to speed. But we see signs of an important break from past leadership that’s essential to the kind of systemic improvements WMATA must tackle, though these shifts need more than 100 days to make much headway on.

We look forward to seeing how this promising GM builds on the hard work and progress he’s shown in the first term.

*Disclosure: GGWash’s board chair, Tracy Hadden Loh, is also a member of Metro’s board. Per our editorial policy, she has no editorial input.