Metro derailed by culture of complacence, incompetence, lack of diversity<\/a>
\n\u2018Inept get promoted, \u2026 capable get buried\u2019<\/p>\nBy Luke Rosiak – The Washington Times – Monday, March 26, 2012
\nFirst of three parts<\/p>\n
Ninety-seven percent of the bus and train operators at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are black, with only six white women out of more than 3,000 drivers, according to Metro documents \u2014 a lack of diversity at one of the region\u2019s largest employers that has led to an acknowledgment of failure in affirmative-action documents and spawned a series of lawsuits.<\/p>\n
The homogeneity, interviews with dozens of current and former Metro workers indicated, is a proxy to a clubby culture of favoritism in which merit has little to do with promotions, and accountability, such as noting safety violations, is a career death knell. In typical examples, court and Metro records show, a black man who spent eight years in prison for dealing PCP was promoted to a high-level management position soon after his release, and whites in the same positions as blacks with far less seniority are inexplicably paid less.<\/p>\n
With Metro\u2019s budget chronically strained and reports of mismanagement coming more regularly than trains, interviews and internal records depict a likely root: an environment in which hardworking employees are actively excluded and those who rise are those willing to do the bare minimum \u2014 never causing a stir by flagging rampant safety violations, reporting malfeasance or proposing improvements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the accident happened in 2009, I called a supervisor and said, \u2018Is this the one we all dreaded?\u2019 The way workers do their jobs, we all knew it was a matter of time. \u2026 The inept get promoted, and the capable get buried. Smart people were put in the corner, ostracized and given nothing to do,\u201d said Christine Townsend, who sued Metro for discrimination and won.<\/p>\n
It is a culture in which a white male engineer near completion of a Ph.D. was passed over for a management position in favor of a black man who was barely literate, multiple staffers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average rider wouldn\u2019t believe the things that go on. There are so many easy things we could do to make the system better,\u201d a station manager said. \u201cBut they\u2019d never put me in charge because they know I\u2019d make sure others actually did their jobs. They don\u2019t want change. It\u2019s go along to get along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Metro is a quasi-public agency that receives funding from the federal government, Maryland, Virginia and local jurisdictions to operate a regional bus and rail transportation system in the national capital area, but is not beholden to rules that apply to fully governmental entities. With a $2.5 billion operating and capital budget for fiscal 2012, Metrorail serves 86 stations and has 106 miles of track, while Metrobus serves the nation\u2019s capital with 1,500 buses.<\/p>\n
Metro\u2019s affirmative-action plan notes that the 1.4 percent of its bus and train operators who are Hispanic and the 25 percent who are female of any race are \u201cless than reasonably expected.\u201d It does not make note of the 1.5 percent who are white.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
COMMENTS:<\/p>\n
* The DC Metro has always been terrible. Like most government planned and built things, it was poorly planned and built from its inception, with the stations in bad locations that don\u2019t correspond to market demand, badly designed for accommodating passenger traffic, etc. The fares are also very expensive, despite it being a government\/quasi-government concern with federal and state funding. And like most government programs, it became a quasi jobs program for blacks and incompetents. It wasn\u2019t so bad since it wasn\u2019t used that much until The War on Terror and the Obama years increased government spending and employment and ridership, as well as the Dems trying to get more people to use public transit.<\/p>\n
* Who runs Riker\u2019s Island, the NYC jail that\u2019s a disgrace?<\/p>\n
* This is increasingly the reality in all the big western cities as the native blue collar population are erased \u2013 the new people hire their relatives and the average competence goes down and everything starts to slowly crumble.<\/p>\n
* Haiti now has only 2% forest cover, and has lost virtually all of its topsoil, making it impossible to grow food, and causing widespread drought. As such, a staple of Haitian culture has become its dependence on imports for 93% of its food, and Haiti\u2019s resultant poverty.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, it\u2019s neighbor, the dominican republic, enjoys lush vegetation, and a functioning agricultural model. This is why dominicans purge blacks from their country from time to time, as well as resist any meaningful immigration by blacks into their country.<\/p>\n
The Bell Curve of African intelligence generally precludes them from being functional amongst themselves in a modern society. Although there are successful Africans in America, they most often occupy the right side of the Bell Curve, or are assisted by others to be functional. Africans on the right side of the curve will always be undermined by the majority low IQ of their race in the middle and left side of the curve. Any social plans that don\u2019t recognize this is doomed to fail each and every time.<\/p>\n
Collectively, Blacks must generally work at menial jobs, or become angry, frustrated parasites on advanced nations. They don\u2019t have the ability to make a choice.<\/p>\n
This is why either allowing blacks to try to run a complicated subway system, or Obama importing blacks by the score, is madness. We should severely limit black immigration, and qualify those we allow in, and just work with what we have for the next few generations. Offering government grants for having submitting to sterilization would be a great start, as well as giving tax breaks to interracial couples.<\/p>\n
Black bodies continue to pile up. Blacks who still have a breath in them are too often leading pointless lives, and are very unhappy. The grand experiment has failed. It\u2019s time to clean up the horrible mess.<\/p>\n
* Anything that is 97% black is going to be dysfunctional.<\/p>\n
* Yes, the NYC subway is more crowded and dirtier. But that\u2019s because it\u2019s a very good and practical and economical public transit system. It\u2019s the best and most practical way to get around NYC. Part of the reason the DC subway functions relatively smoothly and is clean is that it\u2019s not as practical or effective for getting around DC and the DC area as the NYC subway is for getting around NYC, and it\u2019s expensive.<\/p>\n
* Worked for 6 months in DC @ George Washington Hospital as contract nurse in the ER. Lived 2 stops on the metro from work did not bring a car with me from TX. If the trains had running on time and the passengers not been so rude and disruptive this would have been great. I came to the conclusion after one month of using the metro theft it was a Jobs Program for Retarded Criminal African Americans and I was right.<\/p>\n
* Operating a train on a grade-separated metro system like the one in Washington is the definition of a cushy job. The computers basically drive the trains on their own, and the operator is really only there as a backup.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pretty corrupt to direct all those jobs to blacks, but ultimately doesn\u2019t have much an effect on the operation of the system.<\/p>\n
Does anyone have numbers on the percentage of the mechanics and maintenance crew that are black? If the difficult work of maintaining the railcars, the tracks, the signaling and electrical equipment has been turned into a black patronage machine, then it\u2019s surprising the system runs at all.<\/p>\n
* Nothing works in DC, including the Metro, because it is essentially a Black-run city. For those old enough to remember him, Marion Barry exemplifies the model for competence, leadership, and management in DC \u2026 a welfare culture that is corrupt to the core. As the Washington Post once stated, \u201cTo understand the District of Columbia, one must understand Marion Barry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Metro is just one more tick mark on the long list of public-funded programs in DC run into the ground (three other examples are the educational system, public works programs, and summer jobs program for youth). I can\u2019t see a meaningful recovery scenario for the Metro or anything else in DC. Throwing money at the problem doesn\u2019t work due to the culture. It is throwing money down a rathole.<\/p>\n
* This is the type of expose the Washington Post would normally be all over but I\u2019ve never seen even a hint that affirmative action or culture have anything to do with it.<\/p>\n
I know people that work in Metro\u2019s finance department & it\u2019s also black run. Consequently it\u2019s a mess. I know of a white colleague that applied for a job there. He didn\u2019t get an interview He doesn\u2019t however know the reason he didn\u2019t get it is because the Caribbean manager was racist. When he received his resume from a mutual ex-colleague the manager asked if he was black or white. When informed he said he didn\u2019t want a white guy thinking they knew everything to tell him his job. So resume was trashed.<\/p>\n
* The Singapore subway is a model of efficiency and cleanliness. I live in Chicago and take the red line and the conparison is stark. In Signapore the trains are always on time and there are no homeless people melting into the seats. Every aspect of the train cars is cleaner and the system moves you from one place to another much more quickly \u2013 even during rush hour.<\/p>\n
* I left the DC area in 2002 and rode the Metro routinely for years. With some usual problems \u2013 delays in trains, overcrowding at rush hour, etc \u2013 I found it serviceable. I have been following its demise through friends still in the area for years.<\/p>\n
I have to say though that this sounds very much like a vicious circle. I suspect that long before the 97% was reached, white people stopped applying for such jobs and many that were not near retirement left the system. Why stay in a system where promotions and pay are stacked against you and where your likely co-workers and especially your boss were incompetent and hostile? So what happens? More incompetent blacks get hired and more whites leave or don\u2019t apply in the first place. 97% is just around the corner, just a matter of time.<\/p>\n
Two quick parallels:<\/p>\n
The DC school system where it entails the highest per capita cost and the lowest returns. I read somewhere that 40% was the tipping point for school systems. After that white flight took over.<\/p>\n
Neighborhoods and apartment complexes, about which Steve has written over the years.<\/p>\n
Before I left the DC suburbs in 2002, I lived in a great apt complex in Alexandria. Sometime in the 90\u2019s there was a gradual population shift, which became a major shift as time went by. We began seeing often non-family groups of 3-4 people or families w\/several children \u2013 mainly from El Salvador and Ethiopia \u2013 where singles or couples had lived before.<\/p>\n
As living conditions declined as a result of overcrowding, litter, garbage-overflow, and crime, more of the long-timers left, to be replaced by MORE 3-4 groups or families. The new groups living there simply brought in more unvetted renters to share the rent and the conditions reflected the changes. Turnover increased, as you\u2019d expect. Fewer singles and couples wanted to live there so the newest renters were more of the same that drove the old renters out. When I left, I was 1 of 2 whites living in a 14 unit bldg.<\/p>\n
The owners, realizing that they had lost control of the complex, decided to gentrify. The complex was emptied and the units up-scaled, including rent, to where the old renters couldn\u2019t afford to live there. The result was that close to 250 affordable units were removed from the market.<\/p>\n
* In Tokyo there are several competing private rail companies \u2013 they all try to give the best service at the lowest cost in order to lure riders away from their competitors. Unbelievably, this works better than having the government run one big efficient rail system that has no wasteful duplication. Who could imagine that would happen? We should learn from the DC Metro and get rid of wasteful duplication in the airline and auto industries to start with so they too can reap the benefits of socialism.<\/p>\n
* I think, though it\u2019s not been widely acknowledged much, there\u2019s been a cultural devolution gaining momentum in the former black working class and below that\u2019s been slowly occurring since blacks left the republican party, that black elites, and especially white democrats willfully ignore, and the \u201cblack lives matter\u201d constituency are too feeble-minded to be aware of.<\/p>\n
Black Republicans:<\/p>\n