Metro cracking down on speeding bus drivers

“We had some issues with customer complaints dealing with the speed of our bus drivers,” Metrobus Assistant General Superintendent Ted Harris said. “Internally, we determined that we needed to be a little more diligent in monitoring our drivers’ speed.”

Areas customers complained about stretches including Keverton Drive and Watkins Park Drive in Prince George’s County, 12th Street, South Dakota Avenue and the 400 block of Galloway Street in Northeast D.C., and 34th Street and South Utah Street in Arlington, Metro officials said.

Transit officials last summer enlisted the help of the Arlington Police Department to train 35 Metrobus supervisors in the use of laser speed detectors, Harris said.

Supervisors have been out on the streets daily with the laser guns over the past year, issuing bus drivers a total of 152 speeding citations, according to Metro records.

Receiving multiple citations, whether for speeding or other job violations, can result in an employee’s suspension or termination, officials said.

No Metrobus drivers have had to be fired as a result of multiple speeding violations, Harris said.

“From that point of view, it’s a positive, because the message has got through to slow down,” he said.

But drivers do know where they are being monitored — Metro posts the locations of the speed traps in all of the bus divisions, and supervisors with speed guns are required to wear bright yellow vests and stand in a location visible to the drivers.

The program is supposed to be more preventative than punitive, Harris said.

“We were very open with the union that we would post in our divisions exactly where we’re going to be, so drivers know that it’s not a question of hiding behind bushes,” he said.

The transit agency has a zero-tolerance speeding policy in school zones but allows drivers a five- to seven-mile per hour leeway in other areas, similar to the policies of jurisdictional police, officials said.

Harris said bus drivers speed for a number of reasons, but most often to try to get back on schedule when they’re running behind.

Unreliable bus service has long been the top customer complaint in the Metro system — a trend Metro officials have said they are working hard to fix this year by using GPS technology to monitor bus locations and giving supervisors new authority to direct bus traffic from the field.

“We understand that changing traffic conditions affect bus schedules,” Harris said.

“Some drivers take pride in their jobs and try to make up time, and the only way you can do that on a bus is to speed,” he said. “We’re trying to move the culture away from that.”

Metro planners have identified several routes that have out-of-date schedule data, which make it almost impossible for buses to arrive on time.

The planners are developing new, accurate schedules on those routes for drivers and customers, Harris said.

“We’re working with our planning department to add time so that these drivers don’t have to speed,” he said. “The only thing we can give our drivers is a clean bus and time to do his route.”

tluntz@dcexaminer.com