Cap Met/Veolia War of Words Gets Nasty

As reported last week, Capital Metro fired Veolia Transportation from the task of finishing the MetroRail commuter line, scheduled to start early next year, and Veolia shot back with an angry response. Now Cap Metro has shown it can play rough with the PR, too.

In a press release issued Dec. 18, Cap Metro took some hard shots at Veolia:

“Our staff is conducting the necessary review, but I am confident that Capital Metro followed all procurement requirements throughout this process,” said interim Capital Metro President/CEO Doug Allen, referring to Veolia charges that the swift hiring of Herzog Transit Services as the replacement constituted an illegal no-bid contract. “While it’s understandable that our former contractor is upset about losing its job, central Texans should not be distracted by Veolia’s continued attempts to criticize Capital Metro. We made a responsible and necessary business decision and have moved forward.”

Allen then detailed and boasted of Herzog's safety record, and then went back on the attack against Veolia: “While our former contractor may continue to try to scare the public about the safety of Capital Metro’s railroad, we are pleased to now have Herzog and its stellar safety record on the job,” said Allen.

While Capital Metro has shied away from setting a hard deadline for MetroRail to launch – previous deadlines resulted in public relations fiascoes went delays occurred – the agency is now setting a somewhat softer target, saying that "sometime in the first quarter of 2010" is the current goal.