WMATA Board approves plan that would fully automate Red Line, add doors to platforms

Trains without drivers, and a screen door between passengers on the platform and the train they’re waiting for?

It’s within reach after Metro’s board approved a new plan that would, among other things, fully automate the Red Line — and some of Metro’s front line workers are unhappy about the possibility.

The closest example currently in the D.C. area to Metro’s proposed changes is the Aero Train system at Dulles International Airport.

But when it comes to Metro, some workers are concerned enough to address the board directly.

“Now we are being told the solution is to remove the very people who are trained to respond when something goes wrong,” said one member of ATU Local 689. She went on to say all of it should give the board pause.

Raymond Jackson, the head of that union representing most of Metro’s front line workers, says he was told the plan was decades away.

“Let’s sit down and start talking about it,” Jackson said. “Because what you are telling me is you want to displace workers. Or are we going to sit down and talk about where these workers are going to go?”

He says he’s been talking to Metro General Manager Randy Clarke about the plan, which is where he got that 20 to 25-year figure.

“So it looks like one of us wasn’t telling the other one the truth, right? And if we are going to be partners, partner is a little upset with you,” Jackson told News4.

Clarke stressed over and over again that the plan is not about replacing workers — it’s about better safety and reliability for the system, which is his main focus.

“We’ve talked a lot with the union,” Clarke said. “This is going to be a workforce transition plan, just like our whole world is going through right now, right? Our entire world is transforming with technology and AI. We’re just another component to that.”

He added that the nature of the kind of modernization in the plan means it will take time to complete.

“Modernization is like, if you have an old fridge and you buy a new fridge, you modernized that fridge,” Clarke explained. “At the same time, you are going to get a bunch of new features. So automation might be a new feature, but we’ve also modernized our entire infrastructure at the same time.”

Metro says to even accomplish the level of automation in their plan, with self-driving trains and platform doors, they need to apply for and receive federal dollars.

The earliest any changes of this ilk could likely take place is 2032 or 2033.

“We’ve been very clear, if you are working at Metro today, this has no impact on you being a long term employee of Metro,” Clarke said. “Will this evolved what Metro’s workforce looks like in 2045? Randy Clarke doesn’t know, you don’t know and no one else does.”

If the plan that Metro’s board approved does happen, Metro would become the first mass transit system in the country to not have an operator of a train. The Red Line would be first, and the other lines would potentially follow.

Clarke added that, in other areas with transit systems that have driverless trains, such as Europe, there are still employees on board performing tasks other than operating the train.