NJ Transit fined by OSHA

[jis]

NEWARK, N.J. -- A whistleblower investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that New Jersey Transit violated the Federal Railroad Safety Act when it retaliated against an employee for reporting a work-related illness.

The whole article can be seen here.

And now the fearless leader under whose watch this violation took place has gone off to improve safety of WMATA. I can just imagine what might be the sorry outcome from all this for WMATA. Fire all the buggers who actually report safety violation and then there will be no safety violations. :lol:

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Manifestly, NJT needs a major restructuring. Jishnu, if you were selected to pick NJTs next management team, who would you pick?

 

[Ryan]

Sarles and the new safety guy from San Francisco will most certainly be an upgrade over the last crowd!

 

[jis]

Manifestly, NJT needs a major restructuring. Jishnu, if you were selected to pick NJTs next management team, who would you pick?

Unfortunately I can't think of anyone that is available. The guy from Amtrak California could do good. Even Richard Ravitch (ex-MTA) or David Gunn could fix MMC, which is one of the biggest problems at NJT as far as I can tell. Redeker's departure also does not seem to have improved the timetabling and fare setting operations. Just some internal crony got to fill that post I suppose. And of course the nincompoops in Trenton are not helping much either. Fact of the matter is NJTRO is the Governor's personal HO set. He, if he wanted or cared, could set things in motion to fix it in a few weeks. But when even a supposedly transit friendly Governor like Corzine could not care less, I have very little hope from a transit hostile Governor currently in office.

A good step would be to spin off NJT as a separate corporation that is not manifestly in absolute control of the Governor's office, but is answerable to and auditable by the state government through the attorney general's or inspector general's office or some such. The Board of NJT is currently a joke. It needs more independent members who occasionally are awake at Board meetings and actually ask tough questions and occasionally vote down a few management proposals. Right now it is a bunch of rubber stamping automatons populating that outfit. They could be replaced by an equivalent number of laptops which every so often spew out the word "Yes", without changing the net outcome. Oh well, don't even get me started......