Federal Takeover of WMATA?

I mused during the worst of the storm earlier this month that perhaps it makes sense for the federal government to step up on transportation issues in the DC area if it wants public transit to keep running well during significant disruptions like blizzards. It turns out, safety issues on WMATA might prompt such federal intervention:

In a bipartisan letter to Peter Benjamin, chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the senators noted that 17 deaths have occurred on the Metrorail system since 2005, "far outpacing the number of fatalities on any mass transit system in the country." The D.C. area accidents helped prompt the Obama administration to propose new legislation carving out a federal role in rail transit safety oversight. The letter -- signed by Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) and ranking Republican Richard Shelby (AL) as well as Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and David Vitter (R-LA), who lead the committee's transit panel -- says that "the federal government should consider all possible options to ensure the safety of the Metrorail system, including direct federal intervention" if WMATA cannot demonstrate its readiness to do the job.

It's an odd situation, to have many federal agencies so dependent on a system that's funded federally and administered locally. I'm not sure what the right balance of power is, but anything that makes Metro trains, buses, and light rail safer, more efficient ad more resilient is a good thing.