KOJO NNAMDIYou're tuned in to The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5. Welcome. Later in the broadcast what does diversity and inclusion look like at local art galleries and museums? But first the WMATA Board is voting next week on the Metrorail schedule. Returning to late night hours could put crucial federal funding at risk, but it would be a huge relief for workers in the hospitality industry, who often end their shift after Metrorail is closed. Joining me in studio is Jordan Pascale. He is WAMU's Transportation Reporter. Jordan, welcome.

JORDAN PASCALEHey, Kojo.

NNAMDILet's start back in 2016, when WMATA first cut back its hours for its late night service. Why was this done?

PASCALEWell, so you might remember that this was around the time when General Manager, Paul Wiedefeld, came on to Metro for the first time and discovered the extent of the maintenance problems. You know, maintenance had been deferred for years at this point. And so hours were first cut during safe track work, which was in 2016 and 2017. Then the Metro Board voted again to curtail late night hour service for two years to give, you know, maintenance workers a little more overnight worktime to make repairs.

PASCALEBut, you know, late night hours are kind of a more recent thing if you think about. The system opened in '76. In '99, it's when late night kind of really began, one a.m. And then by the mid-2000s it was three a.m. So those decisions largely pushed by late night businesses that requested it.

NNAMDIThe Federal Transit Administration said that it might conceivably pull $1.6 billion in funding to Washington area public transportation if Metro decides to adopt the later hours. Why is the FTA involved in the first place?

PASCALEYeah. So the FTA came in to take over Metro safety oversight back in 2015 after a series of incidents. Mostly the L'Enfant Plaza smoke incident that killed one woman. And the FTA said Metro didn't have the accountability it needed and that they could do a better job.

NNAMDISo why is the FTA threatening to pull this funding?

PASCALEWell, you know, the FTA has given Metro directions on a number of issues and Metro has to follow through, complete the work in order to continue getting funding. Continue having the ability to operate, you know, things like track safety, reducing fires, stopping leaks in tunnels, those sorts of things. And the FTA believes that this is only going to get done with the proper amount of time to work on it.

PASCALEExtending hours cut into that amount of time to work. And it'd also slow down the handoff to this newly created Safety Oversight Board, which is the Metrorail Safety Commission. That handoff is supposed to happen by April 15th, but if that doesn't happen on time if Metro cuts these hours, has less time to work then that process slows down, and FTA said then they'll withhold money.

NNAMDIIt's my understanding, Jordan that if the FTA withholds funding that just doesn't affect WMATA. Where else does FTA's funding go?

PASCALERight. So the FTA funds transit across the country. And, you know, I most recently came from Norfolk, Virginia a couple of years ago where, you know, this was affecting even them. And so for, you know -- to have transit agencies in Virginia and Maryland and, of course, Metro in the District to have that extra pressure if Metro doesn't take care of its business, it's affecting folks across our region.

NNAMDIWho is in involved in making the decision about Metrorail's hours and are they split on the decision?

PASCALEYeah, so right now it comes down to Metro's eight person board, representatives from the District, Maryland, Virginia, and the Feds. Right now it's more -- I would say most people want to keep the current hours. Want to keep that time to do safety improvements. The District has been really rallying to go back to those late night hours to help hospitality workers, to help the late night industry, and to really kind of be the city, the cultural hub that they want to be. So it's mostly here to keep the safety hours.

NNAMDIAlso joining us in studio is Clarence Crawford. He's the Chair of the Safety and Operations Committee for the Metro Board of Directors. Clarence Crawford, thank you for joining us.

CLARENCE C. CRAWFORDThank you having me.

NNAMDIMetro's Safety and Operations Committee, which you chair recently voted in favor of keeping the current hours. Why?

CRAWFORDWe made that decision based on a recommendation from management that said that they still need a certain number of hours, about 40 hours of work each week to catch up with the backlog. We still have a backlog of work that needs to be done. And the issue we really have is not so much whether we'd like to extend hours. Of course, we'd like to extend hours. The question is, can you do it safely? And when you see the reports coming in from FTA and from others raising major concerns about work that's yet to be done, we weighed all of that in the balance and think that today we would stay. The best course of action is to stay where we are.

NNAMDIAnd speaking of the FTA and speaking of today, WTOP reported on the FTA's latest safety concerns with Metro including worker safety and power system issues. So if Metrorail switched back to late night service some maintenance and repairs would have to take place during the day. What kind of impact would that have on the system and on riders?

CRAWFORDOkay. The good news is that we have a board and a leadership team at WMATA that has placed a premium on safety. So what we would do is we'd shift a lot of that work that's done now in the evening to midday. So Metro estimates -- Metro management estimates that by expanding the hours we would pick 600,000 rides per year. The downside to that is because of the disruption of midday and evening we would lose a million -- 11 million rides. The net cost of that would be $45 million. The important thing to know about this is that the $45 million price tag would be outside of the statutory limits that both Maryland and Virginia have imposed. So Metro would either have to find that money.

NNAMDIThat $45 million.

CRAWFORD$45 million. Then Metro's already made a commitment to find $46 million in savings. So they would have to find $90 million in savings or the District government would need to fund this. If Metro is forced to absorb that cost, you'd probably see lesser service and maybe even layoffs of existing employees. So we would have longer hours, but poor service.

NNAMDIHere's Margaret in Washington D.C. Margaret, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARGARETHello. Yes. I'm a hospitality worker and when I do the late night shift to leave work, because Metro closes at 11:30, I either have to leave work a little early or make arrangements with family members or take the Uber to get home. And so it does affect me that cost wise. And on the weekends in the morning if you don't catch the very first train to get to work then you are sure of being late, because they open at eight o'clock on Sundays and at seven on a Saturday. It costs us however you go. It does cost us.

NNAMDIOkay.

MARGARETAnd we do hope that they look at opening earlier and staying open later.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, Margaret. That gives me the opportunity to introduce Benjy Cannon, who is the Strategic Research and Communications Officer at Local 25, which is a hotel workers union in the Washington region. Benjy, thank you for joining us.

BENJY CANNONThanks so much for having me on.

NNAMDIWhy does Local 25 or what's known as UNITE HERE Local 25 support extending Metrorail's hours? Is it because of Margaret?

CANNONI think it's exactly because of Margaret and there are just so many stories like hers. D.C. area and Maryland and Virginia hospitality workers, who are losing hundreds of dollars' worth of wages and going through excessively long commutes either very early in the morning or very late at night because the public transportation system here just does not work for them.

NNAMDIWorkers in the hospitality industry like Margaret often get off work after Metrorail is closed. What do they do instead for transportation or what kind of problems do they run into?

CANNONSo they're all different kinds of other transportation options that Local 25 members rely on. Uber and Lyft is probably the most common and also the most expensive. A lot of workers turn to it, because taxis won't actually take them back to the neighborhoods where they live. I've also heard examples of people walking for 90 minutes or two hours at one or two in the morning after work, because they just have no other way of getting home.

NNAMDIWell, listening to Clarence Crawford's explanation by WMATA's analysis it seems that more Metro riders would be impacted by day time maintenance than the number of riders who would benefit from late night service. So how in that circumstance do you justify the extension in hours?

CANNONThe way we see it is that every time Metro has to makes cuts whether it be service or whether it be budgetary cuts, it is the shift workers of Washington D.C., the folks who are working 24-7 to keep this city running, who bear the brunt of it. I don't know that the white collar working -- the white collar class here that works nine to five who Metro most serves would ever stand for the kind of service hours that our shift workers have had to contend with in Washington D.C. And so we really just want to see some kind of solution or comprise that actually works for the working people, who are keeping this city running.

NNAMDIGlad you brought that up, because, Clarence Crawford, WMATA proposed two alternatives to reverting to 2016 late night hours. One would shift the Metrorail hours to start later and end later. The other would extend weekend hours only. How likely is it that the Metro Board will go with one of those options?

CRAWFORDWell, right now --

NNAMDIThe chances are slim and none, huh, but go ahead.

CRAWFORDNo, no. We're open to considering. If you recall, it was in December when we charged Metro to come back with some alternatives based on concerns from the District and also from the hospitality workers. We brought those recommendations forward. And to date the District government's position has been that they want to go back to the 16 -- FY 16 hours. I want to say that the District government, they're great partners. They're good people. We're just in a disagreement right now.

CRAWFORDLet me point out one thing -- comment on one thing about the hours. We operate hours that are comparable to other world class cities around the world that have a two track system. So our closings are consistent with what you would see in world class cities around the world that have a two track system.

CRAWFORDWe have more tunnels in D.C. than any other place other than New York City. So the notion that our hours are out of alignment with other world class cities is not accurate at all. Love to provide more service, I'm not trying to minimize service.

NNAMDIBut the two track system limits what WMATA can do.

CRAWFORDYes, exactly.

NNAMDIWell, WMATA estimates that shifting the hours would only result in a three percent loss of working hours for maintenance. Could that be a conceivable compromise?

CRAWFORDWell, we're waiting now to hear. We understand that the District government is working on an alternative that they will present within the next day or so. So we're waiting to see what they have. The other thing that we have to keep in mind is this, the caution from FTA. If we change the caps, if we change when we're going to do work, FTA has said they have to review those corrective action plans to make sure that we still will be able to address the concerns.

CRAWFORDSo changing those work hours may mean that the FTA has to then divert resources to reviewing these capital -- corrective action plans, which means that they may then either delay or postpone the $1.6 billion. If they do that, you're looking at major impacts throughout the commonwealth and Maryland and D.C. Affecting everything, even the ride on buses in Montgomery County and Prince George's County will be affected for -- I don't know, whatever specified period of time.

NNAMDIBenjy Cannon, looking back at the two options that I just mentioned that Metro proposed, shifting the Metrorail hours to start later and later or extending weekend hours only, would Local 25 support either of those other options?

CANNONI think we'd want to look pretty closely at both of them, although generally we've been sympathetic to the District's position on simply reverting back to the longer hours. The point for us is really that this is a 24-7 industry whether it's weekends, weeknights, early mornings, late evenings. We have shifts starting and ending at the all hours of the day and night. And unfortunately the conversation that we're having about this now is a kind of disastrous status quo for workers and what we're talking about is going back to something that's still not enough, but just marginally better.

CANNONSo looking at those compromised positions, again, we want to look really closely before kind of coming out in favor of one of them and consider the District's position. But if it doesn't serve the 24-7 industry then it's probably not going to work for working families.

NNAMDIClarence Crawford, is the Metro Board considering anything else to help late night workers or others who need transportation at night?

CRAWFORDAbsolutely. What we've asked Metro management to do is to come back to us with some alternatives of how we could use existing -- other transportation systems, taxis, Uber, Lyft, and the like in a subsidized fashion for late night workers. So we are sympathetic to it. I've been in that position myself. I've worked eight hours a day, and then come in and cleaned offices for eight hours at night. So I understand the issues. So we've asked management to come back with some alternatives of what we could do, which would be more cost effective to assist late night workers.

NNAMDIWell, there are several suggestions from listeners to this broadcast. I'll go with Michael in Rockville, Maryland. Michael, your turn.

MICHAELHello, Kojo. My name is Michael Snyder. I used to be the Chair of the Riders Advisory Council. And one of the recommendations that I think would be great is if they offered shuttle service to take you from station to station. So it followed the Metro lines so that those folks, who are off hours could actually take advantage of the other parts of the transportation hub as they went from place to place. I think Metro should consider that.

NNAMDIIndeed. Marsha called in, but couldn't stay on the line. She wanted to say, Other major cities have overnight bus lines that follow the same routes as the trains. If we had a good late night bus system in D.C. Metro's hours would be less relevant. And then Jerry tweets, What about running late night bus service more frequently instead of giving money to Uber and Lyft? Beda from Arlington emailing, Can WMATA run an overnight bus that stops at all closed stations? This would serve late night workers and patrons while the system is closed for maintenance. Other cities do this. Why can't we? Clarence Crawford.

CRAWFORDWe'll definitely look into that. One of the concerns that we had from the District was that they're reading of the situation was that people did not want to take buses at night. So, again, everything is on the table. We want to do the most reasonable thing. The reality that we have, Kojo, is -- think of it this way. We have one dollar. We can spend it anyway we like. We just have to figure out the best possible way to spend that dollar.

NNAMDIBenjy Cannon, the kind of shuttle bus service that our listeners were talking about that would run along the same routes as Metro does that just would run later.

CANNONI can tell you that we would look much more favorably on that probably than subsidizing Uber and Lyft rides. I know that just as a matter of public policy. We think that privatizing part of our public transportation infrastructure would be a real disaster for workers. Historically it has been in cities across the country. And so other forms of public transportation, which serve the public good and which serve the regions working people, I think we would be more inclined to consider.

NNAMDIAnd I know Jordan Pascale, you'll be watching very closely when this vote is taken next week and reporting on it. Jordan Pascale is WAMU's Transportation Reporter. Jordan, always a pleasure.

PASCALEThanks, Kojo.

NNAMDIClarence Crawford is the Chair of the Safety and Operations Committee for the Metro Board of Directors. Clarence Crawford, thank you for joining us.

CRAWFORDThank you very much.

NNAMDIAnd Benjy Cannon is the Strategic Research and Communications Officer at Local 25, which a hotel workers union in this region. Benjy, thank you for joining us.

CANNONThanks so much for having me on.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break, when we come back, what does diversity and inclusion look like at local art galleries and museums? I'm Kojo Nnamdi.