A busy news week with stories that left me feeling sad (Monday's Metro train crash that killed 9 people, and the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson) and at least one story that left me feeling bewildered (l'affaire de Sanford). Where to begin?

Let's start with the Metro accident. I'm a regular Metro rider who takes the train at least once a week, and the accident Monday has made me scared to ride. I fell in love with the Metro system when I started coming to DC regularly in the mid-1990s while I was still in graduate school to look for a job here. It was the fastest and easiest way to get around the city for someone who didn't really know her way around. It made being here easy.

When I finally got a job and moved here, I still took the train. Until this week, I never questioned the safety of it. Over the course of this week, I've learned that the National Transportation Safety Board repeatedly warned Metro to reinforce or replace the 1000-series train cars, but Metro didn't do so. All the officials I've interviewed or heard speak this week have said nothing was done because of the cost. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be needed to replace the 300 or so 1000-series cars. That's certainly a lot of money, but nine people are dead and we reported this week that some train operators are worried for their safety because of those cars.

What's the long-term cost to the system and the city if people are afraid to take the train and decide to drive their cars? What if tourists begin to believe the system's not safe and they opt to either bring their cars to the city (adding to the pollution), or decide that if they can't rely on safe public transportation they won't visit DC at all? None of those options are good ones for the city and long term might actually cost more than developing a solid plan for replacing the older train cars with newer ones. No one's saying replace them all at once, but even in this economy, someone has to come up with a plan for dealing with the problem. No one can say with certainty that an accident like the one on Monday can't happen again, and the next one could be worse. Imagine if those trains had collided somewhere in downtown DC underground at 5pm on a weeknight. The death toll would likely have been much higher.

Some changes have been made following the accident. Trains are being operated manually for the time being, and those older 1000-series cars are being placed in the middle of the trains instead of at either end. It's a temporary fix. The long term problem must still be addressed, or regular metro riders will permanently lose faith in the system... An expensive prospect the city definitely can't afford.

NewsChannel 8 has learned that former Defense Secretary William Cohen was inside the Holocaust Museum at the time of the shooting and was in fact, just 30 feet from the shooter according to his wife's office.  He is fine.  He was there because his wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, was to debut her one-act play "Anne & Emmett at the Holocaust Museum tonight.  That event, the world premiere of the play Mrs. Cohen wrote and directed, has been cancelled.

  I spoke with Marsha Ralls, CEO and Publisher of Children's PressLine about her efforts to recruit young people in the Washington, DC area to learn about and become journalists.  It's a fascinating program I hope can teach middle and high school students the value of reporting on their communities.