About 300 people attended a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the worst crash in Metro's history, which killed nine — including a 37-year-old Takoma Park man — and injured 70.

Family members reminisced and public officials pledged improvements to the system's criticized safety record, but the loudest applause went to the son of train operator Jeanice McMillan, who choked up as he spoke of his mother, one of the nine killed in the crash.

"My love and my condolences go out to all of you," Jordan McMillan said. "I will keep you all in my prayers."

The crash occurred after the train McMillan was operating rounded a curve and slammed into the rear of a stopped train near the Fort Totten station on the Red Line.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Metro board member Jim Graham said McMillan stayed at her post and pulled the brake after an automatic system failed. Although she could not avoid the crash, her actions in overriding the automatic system to slow the train saved other lives, Graham said.

"Today we reflect on the most tragic day in the history of Metro. We express our shared sorrow," said Graham, who led the ceremony and introduced the family members and public officials who spoke.

Working to improve

Metro officials say they have implemented numerous safety initiatives since the June 22, 2009, crash — from the hiring of a new chief safety officer who reports directly to the general manager to boosting the safety department from 30 to 43 positions.

Metro board Chairman Peter Benjamin called the crash, "The day Metro lost its innocence," saying there had not been a fatal crash involving a passenger since 1982, when three passengers died. "We had thought this couldn't happen to us," Benjamin said of the 34-year-old system.

But critics say the pledges to improve safety are counter to the slow efforts to change the culture of a system that has seen four workers killed in workplace accidents and other missteps since last year's fatal crash.

"What they've done is they've become a lot more cautious and careful in moving the trains. That's a short-term fix at the expense and convenience of the riders," said Ben Ross, president of the grassroots advocacy group Action Committee for Transit in Silver Spring. "The long-term fix is there needs to be a cultural change. You need to create a culture where safety problems are everybody's problems instead of the attitude that it's not my department."

A community concern

Ross said the fatal crash revealed a problem that had been festering. However, it also helped unite the community.

"As much grumbling as there has been about Metro, the public reaction also shows how much the region cares about Metro," Ross said.

At the ceremony Tuesday, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-At Large) of Washington, D.C., struck a similar chord.

"Metro is what binds us together," she said, "Whatever neighborhood we come from in the region."

Ross was not surprised the investigation into the cause of the crash has not been completed by the National Transportation Safety Board. The safety board expects to release its report July 26.

In a statement Tuesday, board Chairwoman Deborah A. P. Hersman offered her condolences.

"Over the past year, the safety board has been taking an unprecedented look, from top-to-bottom, to determine exactly why that fatal accident on the Red Line happened," Hersman said.

The safety board's report is intended to be comprehensive so that a rail accident like this one — whether in Washington or on any other transit property is the country — is never repeated, she said.

Broad reform

The crash caused the federal government to examine transit systems nationally and to push for federal funds to help make improvements, said Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff, who told family members at the ceremony that President Obama has demanded the nation do a better job of preventing such accidents.

The crash has led to a call for more federal oversight of Metro and of public transit systems by some in Congress, including Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) of Baltimore, who has criticized delays on Metro's part in implementing safety improvements.

Although national safety standards exist for buses, airplanes and commuter rail systems such as MARC, there are no similar standards for mass transit systems like the Metro, Mikulski said.

Last year, Mikulski introduced the National Metro Safety Act to require strong new federal standards for transit systems nationwide.

She also is a sponsor of the Public Transportation Safety Program Act of 2010, which was introduced in February after hearings on Metro's safety lapses.

"This is a solemn time for the families whose lives have been shattered by Metro," Mikulski wrote in an e-mail Monday. "Our hearts go out to them. One year ago tomorrow, eight passengers and one worker died on Metro. This wasn't a terrorist attack. These were people commuting to their jobs or working on the job. In the last 12 months, 13 people have died on Metro. After that June 22 crash, four more Metro employees were killed on the job. The way to honor and remember those we've lost is to be relentless in reforming Metro."

But while pushing for safety improvements is important, Ross said that people also have to remember how safe the system is overall.

"You're much more at risk crossing a street to get to a Metro station or driving to a station than you are riding a train," he said.