The capitol of the most powerful country in the world is not able to repair its metro system. Despite the reasons of crash killing 9 people in June 2009 were defined officially this week, the situation remains terrible.

More than one year after the disaster which usually appears in the news from underdeveloped countries but not from the capitol of the economically most powerful country in the world, the metro in Washington DC remains a system with "anemic safety culture"- as defined by NTSB.. And it seems that nobody cares.

The collision in 2009 occurred because Metro's automatic signal system failed to detect the stopped train. NTSB called to remove all the 1482 GRS track circuits, but Washington Metro does not even know, when it will be able to replace them, because of the recent budget deficit.

One of the reasons, why 9 people had to die was the usage of old Rohr 1000 series rail cars, which crumpled to less than 20 percent of its original size during the 2009 crash. NTSB recommended stopping to use these cars "as soon as possible" because of safety reasons. For Washington Metro as soon as possible means the year 2016! The part of the scandal is, that metro will get some new cars already in year 2013, but it will use them not for the replacement of old ones, but for expanding service to the Dulles airport. That means that instead of prioritizing safety expansion of service- and income- is preferred by Metro.   

No wonder, that after NTSB the recent situation posses "unacceptable risks to Metro users". It does not seem that somebody from politicians would care- probably because they use limousines and not Metro. Also this aspect remains on some underdeveloped country but not the capitol of USA...

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Photo: ISIFA