Metra admits it couldn’t beat back blizzard

Metra officials addressed flaws in last week’s blizzard operations, admitting the public transportation agency’s “can do” attitude created more problems than it solved when it ran into functions it simply couldn’t perform.

“We didn’t want to admit we couldn’t do it,” Chief Operations Officer William Tupper said Friday at a Metra board meeting in Chicago. “So we didn’t get that information out to our customers soon enough.”

Tupper specifically referred to how Metra belatedly announced it would be running on a Sunday schedule last Wednesday in the midst of the blizzard. Even with electronic alerts going out to some 51,000 subscribers to the “My Metra” application on its website, that still caught some riders by surprise.

As it was, Tupper said, ridership was just 25 percent of a normal Sunday schedule and 5 percent of a normal weekday, so it affected “not too many riders at all.”

The obstacles, he added, were monumental. The agency tried to account for the snow by having crews stay in hotels near the ends of the lines so they could meet their scheduled start times, but only those in Aurora, across the street from the station, proved to be close enough. Other hotels were a mile or more from the stations, and crews couldn’t make it even that distance.

“The roads were literally closed because of cars blocking them,” Tupper said. “We couldn’t get crews to the yard.”

Even high-tech switch warmers were sometimes overwhelmed in the snow, he added, so that switches had to be shifted by hand.

Tupper said his “back-of-the-envelope estimate” was that the blizzard cost $2 million in overtime and other additional costs, and that was probably low. He added that the agency would be applying for government reimbursement funds as they become available.

“We need to recognize,” Tupper said, “in a storm such as this, we are not going to be able to run normal service.

“We need to set up reasonable expectations of what we can do in a storm like this,” he added. “We should try to make the decision as early as possible that we’re going to have to run a reduced schedule.”

Even at that, however, he addressed possible reforms, such as placing crews in the yards with provisions before storms hit, and turning around a few trains to run locomotives in front going downtown, the better to clear tracks.

New Executive Director Alex Clifford said those measures would help with lesser storms in the future.

“That’s how we welcomed our new executive director,” said Board Chairman Carole Doris, who pointed out Clifford was appointed the day the storm hit.

Clifford called it “a great opportunity,” “a wonderful experience” and “a proud moment” to see Metra executives and staff deal with the crisis in his first day since moving from Los Angeles, but added, “Sometimes it’s about what you learn in these situations.”

Tupper said it was the worst storm he’d encountered in 30 years, so it might be a while before Clifford has to deal with anything as bad again.