Right kind of federal control for WMATA

The year was 1995. Pierce Brosnan revealed the dangers of bathroom assassins in Goldeneye, and Shaggy delighted the country with his sexual exploits in “Boombastic.” For most of America, it was a good year.

Things were less happy in the District. The financial profligacy of newly-elected “Mayor for Life” Marion Barry (D) and the government-eviscerating practices of his predecessor, Sharon Pratt Kelly (D), had left Washington’s government $722 million in debt. Congress, citing the power granted to it in Washington’s charter, created the financial control board to bring down the city’s debt.

The unelected five-member panel was eventually granted vast power over Washingtonians, who fought for decades for even a small say in their local government—only to be denied it once more.

It’s starting to feel a lot like 1995 for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, with safety instead of debt the issue at stake. Last week, four senators, led by Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), sent a threatening letter to WMATA Chair Peter Benjamin. Unless WMATA is able to improve its safety record, the senators wrote, a federal takeover of the agency’s board of directors is inevitable.

Local pundits were quick to dub the senators’ proposed power grab a “transit control board.”  As loathsome as the last control board was, though, this board could be beneficial to the District if the city and WMATA handle Congress correctly.

The first step should be extracting as much money from a federal takeover as possible. In 1997, the financial control board received sweeping new powers over nearly every aspect of the District government, but at a huge price: federal assumption of Washington’s Medicaid and transportation costs.

A federal takeover of WMATA should carry similar benefits, especially since the issue of system safety is tied to aging cars and tracks that the agency cannot currently afford to replace.

The transit control board should have a sunset provision, benchmarks to determine when its work is complete. The legislation authorizing the financial control board mandated that the board dissolve after Washington paid back its debts and kept its budget balanced for four years in a row. The transit board’s legislation should have a similar clause specifying what levels of safety and performance WMATA has to achieve before it becomes self-governing again.

WMATA is currently locked in a death spiral driven by higher prices, decreased service, and worried passengers. A federal takeover isn’t an ideal option, but it might be the only thing that can save our public transit system. To paraphrase an Oscar-nominated song from 1995, WMATA, you’ve got a friend in a transit control board.