Foggy Bottom Metro Line

I post about this altogether too much, but here we go again: epic lines to enter the Foggy Bottom Metro Station because of a rush hour escalator bottleneck. Of three escalators, one is closed for repairs till Nov 29th, one seems to be up-only, and the remaining nonworking one is split between down and up lanes. The result: a forked pair of lines stretching down the block in either direction.

I skipped the scene altogether and walked to Farragut West instead.

Roving Asian mendicant, can occasionally be seen wandering the streets of downtown Washington, muttering unintelligible gibberish to passers-by while pushing a “bag lady” shopping cart full of old blankets, American flags, soda cans, and healthy secondhand snacks from organic food shop dumpsters. Used to live in a cardboard box at 16th and K but the rent was too expensive.

12 thoughts on “Foggy Bottom Metro Line”

  1. HOMYGAWD i was in that stupid effing line, and people kept cutting, and people kept yelling at the cutting people and it was SO BAD. but actually, faster than it looks, i think i was in it for 5 minutes total, and then it also made the platform less packed, and the metro cars less packed. what is the deal with the orange line being a flustercuck lately? i stand by my reccomendation for an express train from vienna through east falls church direct to rosslyn. but nobody listens to me anyways.

  3. Metro (and Metro riders) need to accept the fact that the escalators are unsustainable. New York’s aging subway may not look as pretty, but the stairs work 24/7. If WMATA replaced the shorter escalators (most platform-level escalators and those at entrances to relatively shallow stations like Foggy Bottom), it would save a fortune in repairs and would be better able to keep up with repairs of elevators (critical for disabled riders) and escalators at the deepest stations (like Rosslyn, Dupont, Cleveland Park).

  4. @KatieT – you can’t have express trains without triple tracking. Metro was built without triple tracking and at this point it likely isn’t feasible from a financial or engineering standpoint to widen tunnels for a third track. But in an ideal world you would be right…

  5. At 6:30pm I was at a bus stop along M Street in Georgetown and there were groups of NoVa commuters who had walked over from Foggy Bottom to catch the 38B bus.

    Apparently even if you made it into the station, you couldn’t get on a train.

  6. .. and today morning it was impossible to get OUT of the station. TWO escalators were out of order so the remaining one had to be shared by people coming in and out. Predictably NO ONE could get out – with crowds backed up till beyond the fare turnstiles. I didn’t get a pic but saw a lot of cellphones and cameras being waved about.

  7. It was bad this morning, getting from the platform to the street. Facing the escalators from their base, the center one is still completely kluged — under repair for what, six months now? The left one was closed — the Metro website says “incident/accident” for the closure’s reason. The right one was obviously off, accommodating up and down directions. It took 15 minutes to get from the gates to the street.

    On the upside, folks were friendly and apologetic and I didn’t witness any cutting.

    How much longer will it be like this?

  8. This is a HUGE safety and security hazard.
    The first thing I would like to know is why aren’t passengers being told in a timely manner of the escalator repairs and delays? If there was an announcement at Van Dorn (where I started)that Foggy Bottom had significant delays exiting the station, I would have gladly gotten off at another location. To add to the frustration the Metro employees are completely inept and not informing customers of what the delay is and how to exit in an orderly manner. Leaving close to 300 people stranded with only two Metro employees donning their reflective vests is not a good way to manage a situation. God forbid that there would be a real crisis, I would hate to see how metro responds.

  9. The latest as of 11 am:

    Thursday, November 20, 2008
    Metrorail Disruptions

    Metrorail is currently experiencing a service disruption at Foggy Bottom-GWU station.
    Disruption details: All entrance escalators at Foggy Bottom station are out of service. The station’s elevators are operational. Shuttle bus service has been requested.

  11. The incompetence of DC Metro is unbelievable. Simply startling.

    If we ever have a real emergency, it will be an unparalleled disaster.

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