DC Metro: The money's gone, and we're going to punish you

[nacho]

The Washingtonian expose was...well, infuriating, as they say.

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/transportation/why-does-metro-suck-dangerous-accidents-escalator-outages.php

[RottingCorpse]

I have about $300 in demagnetized paper farecards that I'm too lazy to take to their one (!!) service center at Metro Center.

(I say good riddance paper farecard!)

I have two paper farecards that I want to try and use today. Metro Center is the only place I can turn them in for a SmartTrip card?

[nacho]

I have about $300 in demagnetized paper farecards that I'm too lazy to take to their one (!!) service center at Metro Center.

(I say good riddance paper farecard!)

I have two paper farecards that I want to try and use today. Metro Center is the only place I can turn them in for a SmartTrip card?

At last check, yes. If you can find someone and if their machine is working and if you have an hour to spare.

[RottingCorpse]

You should just send them this thread, Nacho.

https://www.borderstan.com/2016/01/19/theater-company-seeks-metro-horror-stories-for-new-play/

Theater Company Seeks Metro ‘Horror Stories’ for New Play

What’s the most memorable thing that ever happened to you on the Metro? A local theater company wants to know.

Brittany Willis, a playwright with women’s theater group Pinky Swear Productions, launched a survey to collect “unforgettable public transportation stories” last week. The idea, Willis said, is to incorporate some of those submissions into a new play she hopes write later this year.

“I am using the WMATA Metro as a framing device for small stories and experiences on the Metro,” Willis said. “We want the horror stories. People getting caught on the train for two hours. Those kind of stories.”

The play, which is centered on stops along the Red Line, will star a poetic female conductor and a car full of passengers. During the production, the passengers act out a series of stories ranging from awkward encounters to true tales of train harassment.

“Sometimes, there are moments that are suspended in time between the stops,” Willis said. “These are things that can happen on our commute tomorrow morning.”

Willis said that, since launching the survey, she’s received about 75 anonymous responses. She added that a majority of the submissions she’s received so far are from women “who have dealt with really terrible dudes on the Metro.”

“Guys who are sitting too close but are doing some uncomfortable stuff nearby, that was probably the biggest consistent factor, women having to deal with guys doing weird things,” Willis said.

One story that sticks out in her mind is from a person who “watched a man clean and massage a woman’s feet on the train.”

“He took her shoes off and gave her a foot rub,” Willis said. “And the person is very sure that the woman didn’t know the guy.”

But not all of the play’s characters will be powerless to stop harassment, Willis said.

“I have a very specific scene that deals with harassment on the Metro, but will take the power back and give it to the women,” she said, adding that the scene could be considered a “revenge fantasy.”

Though the production is still in its early stages of development, Pinky Swear Productions Artistic Director Karen Lange said she’d like to stage the play on an actual train car near an actual Red Line stop.

“You can’t, without a lot of money, re-create the experience of actually sitting on one of those trains,” Lange explained. “You need the carpet and the seats and the metal poles. … we want a train car, is what I’m saying.”

Lange added that she hopes WMATA hops on board with the idea and lets them borrow a decommissioned train car.

“We’re portraying a conductor as a poet, so we hope that they wouldn’t feel like we’re attacking them,” Lange said.

[nacho]

This thread's public and you're the theater man! Let's spin this into promotional stuff for GS...

[nacho]

I should start keeping tracvk of days I cannot get to work because of Metro...like today.

A downed train had so many people waiting at Bethesda that I couldn't even get through the turnstiles.

Now, my job involves...reading a book. So I can happily work at home. But I know, before this job, that every fucking minute was metered. A late Metro equaled precious PTO and pay thrown out the window.

The whole system and it's history, present, and future just enrages me daily.

[RottingCorpse]

Missus RC and I literally have an "so if you don't make it..." type conversation every time one of us takes the Metro, which lately has been rather often.

[nacho]

Missus RC and I literally have an "so if you don't make it..." type conversation every time one of us takes the Metro, which lately has been rather often.

On average, my commute (which is 8 miles as the crow flies) takes 40 minutes each way. That's a good day, when everything is working.

[Reginald McGraw]

Have you seen this?

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/metro-shutdown--372144902.html

Metro shutting down for inspections for 29 hours...tomorrow.

[nacho]

Yes, of course! It was fucking chaos the moment it was announced. This is just incredible.

So we're all trapped at home today... But I'm the few and the lucky. The estimates I've seen on blogs are that 400,000 of the 750,000 daily Metro riders do not have the telework option and so...onto the roads they go.

What burns me up is that now they're closing for our safety.... TO FIX A PROBLEM THAT KILLED ONE OF US A YEAR AGO! So killing a woman doesn't matter, sending dozens of people to the hospital doesn't matter, daily fires (we average one fire every 15 days at Bethesda) don't matter. But, suddenly, "Your safety is our highest priority."

Really? You're literally murdering us.

Everyone's betting on this extending into Thursday.

The Times has coined it "#metropocalypse" and that hash tag leads to reports already (7:30) of the bus system breaking down...though metro is running all buses for free today.

Very exciting... The Post went ahead and compared it to 9/11 already.

[RottingCorpse]

I was initially going to say "WMATA's implosion continues." However, Wiedefeld is really just finally doing what needed to be done over a decade ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/2016/03/30/fba8ae0a-f688-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html

Metro could shut down entire rail lines to do extended maintenance, board chair says
By Robert McCartney

Metro’s top officials warned Wednesday that the transit system is in such need of repair that they might shut down entire rail lines for as long as six months for maintenance, potentially snarling thousands of daily commutes and worsening congestion in the already traffic-clogged region.

Board Chairman Jack Evans and General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld put rail riders on notice about possible extended closures at a high-level conference of local leaders. The discussion also revealed strong resistance to what Evans said was a “dire” need for more than $1 billion a year in additional funding for Metro.

The officials’ comments underlined the depth of Metro’s problems, which are steadily becoming more apparent as Wiedefeld continues to probe the rail system’s defects since he took over as the transit agency’s chief executive in November.

Until now, Metro has typically done repair work at night or during short shutdowns over weekends.

An exception was the unprecedented shutdown of the entire system on a regular workday March 16 for emergency track safety inspections. Wiedefeld ordered that closure in what now seems to have been an initial taste of more bitter medicine to follow.

[Will drastic action become Metro’s new normal?]

“The system right now, in order to do the maintenance that needs to be done, cannot be done on three hours a night and on weekends. It just can’t,” said Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member (D-Ward 2).

“So in order to do repairs that are necessary, it may come to the point where we have to close the entire Blue Line for six months. People will go crazy. But there are going to be hard decisions that have to be made in order to get this fixed,” Evans said.

Although he twice singled out the Blue Line as a candidate for closure, Evans said any of Metro’s six lines could be shuttered. He said the Red Line was the least likely to be shut, because much repair work has already been done on it.

“That’s up to Paul [Wiedefeld]. He’s the operations guy. I’m just the board member,” Evans said.

Wiedefeld confirmed that he was considering such lengthy closures, but has not made a decision yet. He said he expected to do so within a month to six weeks.

“I’m keeping all my options open,” Wiedefeld said. “There are some bigger issues here in terms of power and track. . . . In the last few years, we’ve been trying to do this [maintenance] in a sort of piecemeal way, and basically we’ve alienated everyone.”

Safety checks during Washington region’s rail system's 24-hour shutdown revealed severe cable damage in three sections. (YouTube/MetroFoward)

Should Metro shut down an entire rail line for an extended period of time to make repairs?
Pardon the interruption!

We need to verify that you are an actual person.

This is a non-scientific user poll. Results are not statistically valid and cannot be assumed to reflect the views of Washington Post users as a group or the general population.

The officials spoke to 100 government officials, business executives and transit experts at an invitation-only “summit” called to mark the 40th anniversary of Metro’s opening by discussing how to restore it to its original “world-class” quality.

The response in the audience was mixed regarding the prospect of lengthy shutdowns. Montgomery Council Member Marc Elrich (D-At Large) said closing an entire line for six months would be “a disaster.” He suggested stopping service earlier in the evenings to allow more time for maintenance.

But Fairfax County Supervisor Penny Gross (D-Mason) said she would support such measures if Metro considered them necessary to fix the troubled system.

In limited shutdowns that have been used in the past, Gross said, “You can do the band-aids, but you can’t do the surgery.”

[At heart of Metro shutdown, worries about uncontained electricity]

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who was reportedly very unhappy that she wasn’t fully consulted about the March 16 shutdown, issued a cautiously worded statement warning that any extended shutdown would have serious impact.

“Shutting down Metro for one workday was an inconvenience, shutting it down for months at a time will have far-reaching consequences for riders and the entire region,” spokesman Michael Czin said. “The plan must be clearly laid out, allow for rider and jurisdictional input, and provide them adequate alternative modes of transportation.”

Harriet Tregoning, who represents the federal government on the Metro board, praised Evans and Wiedefeld for being candid about the system’s condition.

“I’ve been telling Metro for a long time, ‘Quit telling us what you think we want to hear, and tell us what needs to happen’ . . . and then let’s see what the options are,” said Tregoning, a principal deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Tregoning said the impact on the federal workforce, which relies heavily on Metro to get to work, could be reduced by various means such as increased use of telecommuting and adding express buses.

Riders outside the McPherson Square station Wednesday evening described any extended shutdown as “insane,” “extremely inconvenient,” and “kind of terrible.”

“I don’t know how I would get to work,” said Meredith Westerlund, 25, who lives in Northwest and uses the Orange or Silver line to commute to a nonprofit organization in Arlington. “I would hope they would put buses in place that follow similar lines.”

Chris Williams, 48, said that he might stop using Metro for commuting if it shut down for a long period.

“If I started driving in, I don’t know if I’d ever go back to riding Metro,” Williams, who lives in Herndon and commutes to work in a government agency downtown, said.

Instead of an extended closure, he said, “I would recommend the obvious thing, that they shut down on weekends.”

But several said they would support a closure if it were necessary for the sake of safety.

“It would be majorly disruptive, but it’s better than constant delays, and me wondering if there’s going to be a spark or fire,” Sophie Perry, 23, who works in consulting, said.

An extended shutdown for maintenance would be a first for Metro, but other transit systems have taken such steps as the nation’s transit infrastructure has deteriorated, partly because of lack of investment.

[Metro union chief: Wiedefeld is first general manager to truly care about safety]

Chicago shut down a 10-mile stretch of rail line for five months in 2013 to rebuild it and end chronic delays. The Maryland Transit Administration plans to shut down a stretch of the Baltimore subway system from July 23 to Aug. 12, to replace major rail components.

Wiedefeld’s predecessor, former general manager Richard Sarles, ruled out extended closures for maintenance purposes, on grounds that they would be too disruptive.

The forum, called “Metrorail at 40: Restoring a World Class System,” took place in an elegant room at the Mayflower Hotel. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and the Greater Washington Board of Trade organized it to launch what they hope will be a yearlong effort to increase support for Metro among local governments, business leaders and other parties.

Evans, who was elected board chairman in January, used the all-morning forum as an occasion to sound what he presented as an urgent alarm about the need for dramatically increased funding for Metro.

Late Wednesday afternoon, he said he regretted that public attention was instead focused on the possibility of closures.

“Getting the funding and support for the system is the critical point I was trying to make,” Evans said.

Earlier, he told the forum that the District, Maryland and Virginia should create a dedicated funding source, such as a regionwide sales tax, to provide an additional $1 billion a year to Metro for capital investments such as maintenance. He also said the federal government needed to provide $300 million a year in additional money for operations.

“If we don’t have that, we’re never going to get to be a world-class system,” Evans said.

He also said that the three local jurisdictions would have to increase their contributions next year in order to cover increased labor costs that he said were sure to result from negotiations beginning Friday over new union contracts.

But several influential local officials expressed skepticism about Evans’s pleas. In particular, Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn said Metro needed to improve its performance on safety, financial management and other matters before local jurisdictions would contribute more.

“Until the house is in order, it’s going to be difficult to get additional funding for anything,” Rahn said.

Fairfax Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova (D) also expressed apprehension.

“I don’t agree that increased costs for operations [next year] is a given, and I don’t think that’s a good way to start a discussion regarding financing,” said Bulova, whose county is a major contributor to Metro’s budget.

“I’m not sure he [Evans] fully appreciates how much comes out of local jurisdictions,” Bulova said.

Evans conceded that he faced opposition.

“Listening to the comments, I’m not sure that a lot of people are on board yet. I think today’s meeting was an informational session to really alert people of the dire circumstances,” Evans said.

COG Chairman Roger Berliner, who in January was first to propose the forum, said it was necessary to work harder to overcome the resistance to a dedicated funding source for Metro.

“We’re going to have to change that equation,” said simultaneous Montgomery Council member Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda). “We can’t afford to wait.”

Aaron Davis contributed to this report.

[nacho]

The impact of this is going to be beyond description. Yes, it needs to be done...but this will change the whole makeup of the area.

[nacho]

Metro catch-up! My commute has been a nightmare this week because there's been a fire every single day. On Saturday, a mechanical room actually blew up.

Meanwhile, we've had some fun little news articles. RC sent me this wonderful and hilarious piece:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2016/04/26/the-state-of-metro-is-a-gothic-nightmare/

And FixWMATA has been charting the outages so far this month:
http://fixwmata.com/2016/04/26/wmatas-red-line-a-brief-history-april-2016/

[nacho]

So the WMATA board meets tomorrow to discuss a repair plan, then the public will find out next week.

Rumors are...well, out of control. There have been leaks, whispers, theories, guesses.

Some combination of the below is expected to happen:

1) Hours will be drastically cut (perhaps even digging into rush hour, perhaps running trains rush hour only)
2) Service will be drastically cut (i.e. weeks of single-tracking, and maybe shorter trains)
3) Entire lines will shut down for X number of weeks (possibly months)
4) Only the Orange and Blue Lines will be seriously impacted (WMATA implied this themselves a week ago)
5) Each line will shut down for X weeks/months on a sort of rotating schedule
6) Some stations will be bypassed for X weeks/months (stations affected by this rumor include the entire Medical Center-Tenleytown stretch of the Red, and McPherson on the Blue, the gaps will be filled by bus connections)

No matter what, though, it's going to be a shitfest. That much is certain. Metro has to come up with a plan, and they have to enact it, and it will be drastic. At the current operating level, Metro says it'll "take years" to catch up to the safety standards they've been ordered to get up to.

[Reginald McGraw]

Fireball caught on tape: http://www.nbcwashington.com/traffic/transit/Metro-Trains-on-3-Lines-Delayed-by-Track-Problem-378320681.html

Absolutely terrifying.