WMATA General Manager Paul Wiedefeld has released the agency’s plans for fixing its safety, reliability, and finance issues in 2017. Metro is calling the plan “Back2Good.”

Wiedefeld at the National Press Club. Photo by Adam Tuss on Twitter.

Speaking at the National Press Club this afternoon, Wiedefeld outlined the plan. Highlights of the initiatives include:

Preventing near misses by reducing red signal overruns.

Completing work on schedule for installing the public radio system and activating cellular service in the tunnels as work is completed.

Reducing delays and offloads from track defects and railcar failures by 25% in 2017, through means including accelerating the retirement of the oldest and most unreliable cars, commissioning 50 new trains, implementing targeted repair campaigns of defective components on the legacy fleet, and rebalancing the rail yards to avoid missing terminal dispatches.

Power washing, scrubbing, and polishing all 91 stations annually instead of every four years.

Further reducing expenses by eliminating a total of 1,000 positions.

Balancing the budget and securing regional governance and funding solutions.

Read the full details in Back2Good white paper released by WMATA here. What do you think of Back2Good? Tell us in the comments.