July 11, 2010|By Michael Dresser, The Baltimore Sun
When he was named to head the Maryland Transit Administration late last year, Ralign T. Wells enjoyed a brief honeymoon amid upbeat stories of the bus driver who rose through the ranks to head an agency with 3,300 employees and an annual budget of $617 million.
His rapport with MTA riders seemed to weather the problems that arose during February's blizzards, which knocked the aboveground portion of the Metro subway out of service for about a week. But summer, with the wear and tear it brings to the vulnerable MARC system, is raising the heat on the 43-year-old administrator in multiple ways — including criticism from former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
With the MARC commuter train service afflicted with breakdowns and rider complaints, Wells and his agency have been thrust into the middle of this year's gubernatorial campaign. And he has learned that amid controversy even a smile can be interpreted as a sign of callous disregard.
Still, even as he wrestles with persistent problems with MARC commuter train service, Wells is trying to engineer a transformation of the agency's culture to emphasize customer service on all its rail and bus systems.
He insists he is moving forward with an ambitious, multiyear effort to improve the MTA's service quality and communications with passengers. Wells said the reorganization he has set in motion is not a silver bullet that will eliminate the agency's problems, but the ever-optimistic administrator is confident it will bring noticeable improvements in performance.
"If we continue on the trajectory we're on, I sincerely see the MTA being one of the nation's premier transit organizations," he said.
Wells said that when he was working his way up the ranks, he noticed that there were bus problems that rail supervisors wouldn't deal with and rail problems that bus supervisors wouldn't deal with.
He wondered: Aren't they all just MTA problems?
Now that he occupies the administrator's office with the breathtaking view from the top of the William Donald Schaefer Tower, Wells is demanding that his managers take responsibility for solving problems no matter where they crop up.
"Anything that happens in their zone, they will be responsible for," he said.
Wells is attempting to bring these fundamental changes to the way the MTA does business at the same time he is wrestling with a critical breakdown of service on MARC — one of the six modes of transportation the agency provides.
A June 21 incident in which passengers on a disabled Amtrak-operated train on the Penn Line were left to swelter on the tracks for two hours put MARC service onto the front pages and into the middle of the gubernatorial race between Ehrlich and Gov. Martin O'Malley — both of whom he has served in high-level jobs.
The controversy over MARC performance, and Ehrlich's criticism of Wells for not attending meetings of a riders' advisory group, brought the affable MTA chief into a political arena he had largely avoided. His efforts to ride the rails to meet personally with MARC passengers have received a mixed reaction, with some customers appreciating the gesture but others demanding his ouster.
Under the circumstances, at least one outraged MARC rider found Wells' trademark smile off-putting, describing it as a "smirk."
"What is funny, Mr. Wells? Why the smile? If that is your defense mechanism, please, don't bother showing up anymore. You just make things worse," wrote Kevin Culp of Severn in an e-mail.
Since the stranded train incident, Wells has made several important changes at MARC — including an announcement last Wednesday that he has extended customer call center hours until 11 p.m. to match the commuter trains' schedule. Under pressure from Maryland officials, Amtrak has announced other moves, including a policy under which its trains will stop to help disabled MARC trains.
But as much as MARC's woes and relations with Amtrak have absorbed his energies in recent weeks, Wells has also been getting out into the community to meet with transit advocates to discuss his plans for improving service on the MTA's buses, light rail, Metro, contractor-operated commuter buses and Mobility van and taxi service for the disabled.
At the core of Wells' effort is a reorganization plan to create a separate service quality division to make improvements in all of MTA's core services. The program, which he said had its origins under previous administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld, is patterned after the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.
Wells said the program is being phased in and won't be fully in place until the MTA opens its new control center now under construction at Eutaw and Saratoga streets late next year.
