Randy Clarke

I'm your host, Jingua Zhao.

Today, I'm delighted to have Randy Clarke, the general manager and CEO of WMATA, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, to join us.

It is one of the largest transit systems in the country.

Randy, last year, I invited you to come to MIT.

And so the logic for expanding it and building it out never was there because so many people didn't ride it, and it just became a vicious cycle.

So now Randy Clarke, the Metro general manager, says, you know, "We can't expand Metro, like, train capacity at RFK.

There isn't, you know, the money in the budget or, or feasibility to actually build a new station, so we'd use this bus rapid transit system instead, building it right down the middle of H Street." That is, of course, exactly what they tried and failed to do with the streetcar.

So I think the council, by and large, is, is in on this plan.

And, and certainly, you know, the council can push Metro to, to do so.

But at the end of the day, if Metro doesn't wanna do it, then it, it really doesn't [laughs] super matter, you know, how much the c- the council can put money in the budget and try and insist upon it.

But I don't know that they've got the half billion dollars lying around that it, that Randy Clarke says it's gonna take.

So I, I think that they want them to think about it more, but I think ultimately, so long as Randy Clarke's stance remains that this is not feasible, I have a hard time imagining it happening.