The Daily Feed, WMATA, WTF?!

Metro GM Catoe to Resign

Photo courtesy of
‘WMATA Blogger Roundtable’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

Update 2:00 p.m.: We put in a call to our WMATA contact, Ron Holzer, who indeed confirmed that Catoe has tendered his resignation to WMATA’s Board. Apparently, the announcement took everyone by surprise, as no one at WMATA had in inkling this was coming. Needless to say, neither did any of the area bloggers last night. Catoe played his stepping-down pretty close to the vest.

This news alert came as a COMPLETE SHOCK to me. Lena Sun at WaPo has broken the story that WMATA GM John Catoe, Jr. will be resigning as General Manager of the agency, effective April 2, 2010.

What’s completely shocking about this is that it comes on the heels of what, by many blog accounts today, was a very successful face-to-face meeting with area bloggers last night. Our own Tom Bridge covered the meeting in depth and even came away with some healthy respect for the man. (As did I, after reading several accounts of it.)

Catoe announced his intentions to resign after a special board meeting this afternoon. He said he realized that the tragedies at Metro in the last year had created “an unhealthy distraction” and that good leaders should know when it is time for a leadership change.

More as details unfold.