DC Metro Manager Meets With Bloggers. Later Resigns

DC Metro Manager John Catoe announced today that he will be resigning. It's not that surprising given all the messes of the last year.

Separately, Catoe and other staff met with a group of local bloggers yesterday, including those who are plenty critical of them (i.e. the blog Unsuck DC Metro). Here's the write-up from Greater Greater Washington. No super-juicy tidbits or anything, though UDCM notes:

Catoe acknowledged what riders know – that under post-accident manual control, Metro is struggling to maintain proper timing and spacing of trains. Trains bunch up, which creates gaps, and forces trains to hold to make schedule adjustments. The daily total of trains remains the same, he said, but during peak hours, the timing problems mean fewer trains are getting through. So even though ridership is down since the accident, service is worse.

I think the blogger meeting is most interesting just in terms of government transparency and the influence and thus growing access of the new media, pajamas media, twitterhideen, whatever you call them.

GGW concludes:

The participants were still brimming with questions when Mr. Catoe had to leave for his next meeting, but Metro's PR Director Lisa Farbstein suggested there could be more blogger roundtables in the future. Based on the way the glimpses bloggers received into the more human side of Metro and its General Manager seem to have softened some of his fiercest critics' anger, that'd be a very smart move.