Sustaining Washington Metro: Meeting the Twin Challengers of Aging and Growing Pains

WMATA bus, rail and paratransit ridership is growing at unprecedented levels. Ever increasing demand for transit services have placed a greater reliance on people and equipment reliability. Yet Metrobus and Metrorail are over 25 years old. This paper will discuss how WMATA is meeting the twin challenges of aging and growing pains to ensure mass transit sustainability in the Washington Metropolitan region. The WMATA goal is to provide reliable and comfortable service. Existing systems needs are addressed in an Infrastructure Renewal Program (TRP), an employee evaluation system based on WMATA's goals and a customer oriented initiatives program which includes keeping the public informed to what is going on in the metro system.