Metro board Chairman Jack Evans responds to a question from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in April. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld is on his left. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

As Metro board chairman, Jack Evans is doing a fine job representing Ward 2 in the District of Columbia. In a better world, the chairman of the region’s transit authority would represent the interests of all Metro riders and all the civic and business interests that rely on Metrorail.

Instead, Evans, who is also a D.C. Council member, has threatened to wield the District’s veto power on the Metro board to protect the interests of bars, restaurants and hotels, many of them located in his ward.

A veto — even the threat of a veto — will have the effect of limiting the amount of time inspectors and work crews can spend maintaining the Metrorail system.

On Thursday, Evans participated in board committee deliberations over General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld’s plea for the extra track work time. Evans used the word “we” a lot.

It was plain whom he was talking about, as in: “We need to stay open to three o’clock in the District of Columbia.”

At no point in this crucial discussion about restricting rail service hours to create more maintenance time did the board chairman imply that he was speaking for the hundreds of thousands of people who use Metrorail.

Evans said the D.C. representatives on the board would grudgingly accept a one-year program to increase preventive maintenance. A proposal to do anything more would be vetoed.

He described that as a bend-over-backward compromise on the part of himself and the rest of the D.C. government. It’s a compromise, he said, because the District government “does not like this at all.”

This is the same Jack Evans who told us in March that Metrorail had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it might be necessary to shut down entire lines for six months to fix them.

But when Metro’s general manager wants extra hours for preventive maintenance?

Whoa, says the Metro board chairman. Let’s not get radical.

[Evans in March: Metro could shut entire lines for maintenance]

If the maintenance plan is rejected when it comes before the full Metro board, then next summer, the rail system’s hours will revert to what they were before the SafeTrack maintenance program began: 3 a.m. closings on Friday and Saturday nights, and no extra time for preventive maintenance.

“The District wants to be in the driver’s seat,” said the supposed leader of the regional transit system. “It affects us a lot more than anyone else.”

“It” was not a reference to a safe and reliable transit system.

Restricting hours of rail service affects the District’s entertainment industry. Some patrons use late-night Metrorail to get to and from the entertainment zones.

Evans said that during the lengthy debate over increasing preventive maintenance time he’s heard from unions, restaurants, other interest groups — “everyone I represent.”

That’s fair enough for the council member from Ward 2. But a Metro board chairman should first and foremost be an advocate for the people who have been affected by crashes, derailments and strandings, as well as the delays that riders now consider part of the daily Metrorail experience. Some of them might even visit a D.C. bar on occasion.

A word now about preventive maintenance, and that word is “preventive.” The program envisioned by Wiedefeld isn’t a reconstruction effort like SafeTrack. Wiedefeld wants inspectors and work crews to have more time each week to do the testing and fixing that prevents little problems from becoming big problems.

This is something Metro should start doing, and then keep doing. The idea that Metro hasn’t been doing preventive maintenance on this scale is alarming. The idea that it would stop after only a year is outrageous.

[Board committee advances plan for late-night cuts]

During the board committee’s debate over options, Wiedefeld said he could live with a program set to the last two years, if that’s what the board chose to approve.

If Evans has his way, Wiedefeld won’t even get that.

Evans is a board veteran. A much newer board member, Carol Carmody, was among those whose comments during the debate suggested a different style of transit governance. “We have a crisis,” she said of the current state of Metro and the difficult choices facing the board. “Governance is doing the least unpleasant thing that helps the most people.”

That’s about where we are, and it’s not pretty. But the transit system won’t emerge from this mire without a leadership system that puts the riders’ safety first.

Dr. Gridlock also appears Thursday in Local Living. Comments and questions are welcome and may be used in a column, along with the writer’s name and home community. Write Dr. Gridlock at The Washington Post, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or ­email drgridlock@washpost.com.