Tag Archives: WMATA

The Daily Feed
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Metro to Spend Almost $1b on Giant Kawasaki Motorcycles!!

Photo courtesy of
‘Motocross #11’
courtesy of ‘Vincent Luigi Molino’

Metro announced today that they have approved a contract worth $886m for Kawasaki! The money will go towards 428 giant, super duper fast motorcycles that can hold an enormous amount of people each. Of all of the ideas to improve the rail system, I think going with giant motorcycles is the best idea yet. I can’t wait to hear what the 1 trillion HP engines sound like on these babies when you open them up at full throttle! I wonder if the train operator can get these bad boys to do wheelies?

What’s that? Kawasaki builds rail cars too?? Ah, Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc. You can see the confusion. So that means…they aren’t giant freaking motorcycles? Damn. Well, still cool. As long as they have sidecars.

Metro plans to replace 300 of their old Series 1000 cars with this new purchase and provide 128 new cars for the super Dulles rail extension. (Which speaking of, have you seen that project? It’s like they’re trying to finish it by Memorial Day or something!) This allows them to both fulfill the needs of the rail extension project and make Metro a significantly safer system, complying with the NTSB recommendation to give the old dangerous cars the boot. This should replace all Series 1000 cars out there.

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Talkin' Transit, The Features, WMATA
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Talkin’ Transit: Back to Basics with Richard Sarles

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

Last night’s blogger roundtable with interim WMATA General Manager Richard Sarles was instructive for where the organization’s focus is right now: it’s all about “back to basics” for the interim GM, who is intent upon shoring up his priorities of Safety, Reliability and Fiscal Stability.  The system has, in his view, suffered massively in the last few years, and as long as it took to get there, it will take that long to get it back.  That starts, according to Sarles, with a return to the basics.

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The Daily Feed
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Orange Line Double Whammy

No Passengers

The Orange Line is abuzz with delays. A train has been offloaded for mechanical difficulties at East Falls Church, and another train at Ballston appears to have begun emitting smoke. This would happen right at the peak of rush hour just when hordes of hungover Washingtonians need to be at work for Seis de Mayo. Naturally there is no notification of delays whatsoever on the website.

Update: Since there has been no further buzz or WMATA update I can only assume that the delays are cleared by now.

News, The Daily Feed, WMATA, WTF?!
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Metrobus Passenger Shot on U2 near Minnesota Ave

Photo courtesy of
‘Metro Bus, Downtown Washington DC’
courtesy of ‘Photos by Chip Py’

Metro has just announced that a passenger on board a U2 Metrobus was shot early this evening near the intersection of 18th & Minnesota Ave SE. The passenger was transported by life-flight helicopter to Washington Hospital Center with significant injuries. No motive is apparent, and MPD is investigating.

The Daily Feed
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Red Line Delays Due to Track Fire

Delays.jpg

An “arcing insulator” has caused a fire on the Red Line tracks (Shady Grove direction), outside Dupont Circle. At the same time, a track circuit issue is giving Metro problems at Farragut North. Single-tracking is currently in effect between Dupont and Van Ness. Expect major delays in both directions this afternoon. Official WMATA release here.

Update: “Normal” service has been restored.

Talkin' Transit
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Talkin’ Transit: Wishful Thinking

Photo courtesy of
‘tunnel vision*’
courtesy of ‘mofo’

Metro has a new (interim) general manager, and what follows is my “welcome to DC, please fix Metro” letter. Some of it is needed work, but admittedly, some of my wishes are wishful thinking.

Dear Mr. Sarles,

Welcome to Washington. I hope the city and the mild weather we’ve been having agrees with you. I trust you are slowly learning the ropes over at Metro HQ, and that you’re keeping your promise to ride the system (at least once in a while).

I’m sure that you’ve been briefed by some of the best and the brightest at Metro, already. I hope you’re well on your way to understanding some of the major issues facing Metro, and that you still have some space on your plate for some of the less critical items as well.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to drive into the office. It was a smooth, fast ride at 5:30 in the morning. Faster than Metro could have got me there. I did have to pay for parking, and at $12, it wasn’t steep but not something I could afford to do every day. More and more, though, I find myself contemplating paying that every now and again. In the evenings, especially if I stay downtown for a leisurely dinner, I tend to cab it home.

It didn’t always used to be that way, Mr. Sarles. Until the last few months, it was rare for me to cab anywhere. Now, I’m trying to wrangle a deal for parking and taking taxis over half the time. The problem? Well, it’s item one on my list.

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News, The Daily Feed
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Equipment Derailment to Slow Your Commute

Photo courtesy of
‘Empty Metro Car’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

Metro has implemented speed restrictions on part of the Yellow and Blue lines following the derailment of a piece of maintenance equipment. If your commute takes you between National Airport and Crystal City, you will notice a slower train speeds.

A speed swing vehicle derailed while returning to the Alexandria rail yard after overnight work, causing minor damage to the tracks. The damage was repaired, but the vehicle derailed a second time and was parked on a pocket track until it can be examined.

Metro has not said how long the speed restrictions will be in effect.UPDATE: Metro tells us that the 15 mph speed restriction will be in place all day.

UPDATE: Metro is also reporting delays of up to 20 minutes on the Green line due to a cracked rail at Naylor Road Station. Trains are single tracking between Naylor Road and Southern Avenue.

Talkin' Transit
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Talkin’ Transit: Institutional

Photo courtesy of
‘good morning’
courtesy of ‘volcanojw’

Last week we told you about Metro’s board having voted to give preliminary approval to change their privacy policy in order to be able to provide SmarTrip data to users over the internet. The press release outlining what was to happen later this year set off my “I-can’t-believe-we’re-having-this-conversation” alarms.

In that release, Metro points out two things that set me off. First, there’s the reason for the change. It seems that after SmarTrip was introduced in 2004, the board approved a privacy policy in 2005 that seems not have considered the possibility that people would want access to their data over the internet.

Let me repeat that: five years ago, almost 15 years after the world wide web was invented and a decade after “information superhighway” entered the general lexicon, Metro’s board didn’t consider the internet when making their plans. Add to that having to have the board act in order to change the privacy policy because, it seems, the policy is written so narrowly that delivering the same data online and offline requires a change.
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The Daily Feed
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SmarTrip Info Coming to a Website Near You

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Metro’s board gave preliminary approval to a change in the system’s privacy policy yesterday. The change would allow Metro to give you information about your SmarTrip card online.

Amazingly, Metro did not anticipate giving users access to their data online when the privacy policy was enacted in 2005. The full board will vote to change that later this month, and riders should expect access to their information by July.

Metro says that having SmarTrip information available online “will save Metro approximately $6,000 per year of staff time and copying costs incurred in responding to requests for paper records.” That’s right, paper records are currently the only way to get access to this data.

The press release does not fill me with confidence that the process will be easy or sane, though. Metro will require a raft of information as well as a “digital signature” before they’ll let you access that data.

News, The Daily Feed
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Metrobus Operator Arrested

Photo courtesy of
‘Butternut #2’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Metrobus operator Dwayne Adamson was arrested by Metro Transit Police after pulling over the bus he was driving in the 2900 block of Minnesota Avenue, SE. He was arrested after allegedly pulling a knife on another motorist following a traffic dispute around 5 P.M.

Adamson was operating bus 2533 on the U2 route in Southeast. He has been a bus operator for three years.

The Daily Feed, WMATA
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Still Time to Let WMATA Hear Your Voice

Photo courtesy of
‘Barbod #3’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Metro riders, you’ve only a few days left to make your voices heard. The last public hearings on WMATA’s budget crisis for the next fiscal year are tonight and tomorrow. Tonight’s hearing is at the Arlington County Board Room, Third Floor, 2100 Clarendon Blvd. Tomorrow’s hearings are at All Souls Unitarian Church, Pierce Hall, 1500 Harvard St. NW in the District, and Montgomery County Executive Office Building, cafeteria, 101 Monroe St. (entrance on Jefferson Street) in Rockville, MD.

Can’t make the hearings? You can still participate through an electronic survey or with written comments that can be emailed or sent directly to the Office of the Secretary, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 600 Fifth St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001. Comments are due by 5 pm on April 6.

Talkin' Transit
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Talkin’ Transit: Last Week on the Job

Photo courtesy of
‘WMATA Blogger Roundtable’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

Metro General Manager John Catoe will be ending his three year tenure at the transit agency on Friday, but his legacy will be debated for a while yet. As he transitions to the world of transit consulting, there’s a natural break for us to look back at Metro and at his tenure.

During his three years at the helm, there were many positive changes. The Metro system saw huge, record breaking number of trips during Obama’s inauguration, 1.12 million on the rails in one day (PDF), and performed admirably. Also during Catoe’s tenure, Metrorail stopped using four car trains (though they kept threatening to go back to them).

But positive is not how most people will look back on Metro’s last three years. Catoe oversaw the deadliest and most accident filled years in Metro’s history. We’re all painfully aware of the impact of the June 22, 2009 accident which left 9 people dead and the system on the brink. But despite an increase in focus on safety, there were three incidents which killed four Metro employees after that date, and a derailment earlier this year. And let’s not even mention the number of accidents and deaths caused by Metrobus.

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WMATA, WTF?!
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Sick

Sick customer on the Orange Line

“We need a doctor,” came the yell. Some of the last words you want to hear on Metro; they indicate that somewhere on the train, someone may be suffering or dying — and of more callous concern, that WMATA’s “Sick Customer” policy goes into effect, stopping the train and triggering cascading delays down the line.

It was Wednesday evening, rush hour. I was at Rosslyn, on the Orange Line to Vienna. The operator announced over the train P.A. that he would be leaving the cab to attend to a sick customer, emergency services had been summoned, and that we would be holding at Rosslyn indefinitely. In the second car of the train, an elderly man in a suit had collapsed from what appeared to be a heart attack, and lay on the floor, unmoving, a doctor examining him while another passenger checked his cellphone for emergency contacts.

Outside, the station P.A. announced delays on both tracks of the Orange Line due to a sick customer at Rosslyn, single-tracking in progress. Then, another announcement that the train at Rosslyn was being offloaded — but no such announcement had been made on the train that I was on. Passengers looked around doubtfully. Shortly after, the operator returned to the cab and announced that, yes, “this train will be offloaded, please board the train that is now arriving upstairs.”   Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Relax, This is Just a Test

Photo courtesy of
‘DSCF5781’
courtesy of ‘joelogon’

Metro announced today that two emergency response exercises will be happening Sunday and Monday next week, so here’s a heads up not to panic when you see “numerous police, fire and emergency response vehicles, first responders and volunteer ‘victims'” in the middle of the night this weekend.  One drill will simulate an explosion on a Metro train in the tunnel between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom at 1 AM on Sunday morning, and trains will single-track around the ‘accident’ from 11 PM Saturday night to closing at 3 AM on Sunday morning.  The second drill, which will simulate a Metrobus explosion with multiple injuries, will happen on Monday morning at 10 AM at the RFK Parking lot.

These drills are meant to test Metro emergency management and regional emergency response crews.  Here’s hoping they pass!

The Daily Feed, WMATA
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Delays, A Fare Raise, And Escalator Outages — Oh My!

Photo courtesy of
’55/365 – dupont circle’
courtesy of ‘dracisk’

As if Metro riders haven’t had enough day-to-day issues plaguing them as they fork over chunks of their paychecks for endless delays and an array of other dilemmas over the past year … now, there’s more.

WaPo reports that there are 60+ escalator outages throughout the entire Metrorail system at the moment. Way to go WMATA.

I mean — I’m a firm believer in walking up the escalator stairs because that’s what feet were made for — but with Metro turning down media requests for interviews regarding the escalator problem it makes you wonder, what else is wrong that they’re not telling us about?

The Daily Feed
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Shooting at Pentagon Metro


(Video from ArlingtonNews)

Update, the next day: Pentagon shooter J. Patrick Bedell was a software engineer from California, with lots of online trails: a Wikipedia profile, a blogspot blog, an Amazon review and wish list, a Linked In page, and a SourceForge project. See DCist and Gawker for additional details on Bedell’s disturbed online presence.

(Earlier updates after the jump)
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Talkin' Transit
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Talkin’ Transit

Richard Sarles at the groundbreaking of the Mass Transit Tunnel in June 2009. Courtesy former Gov. Jon Jon Corzine's office

Richard Sarles at the groundbreaking of the Mass Transit Tunnel in June 2009. Courtesy former Gov. Jon Jon Corzine's office

Greater Greater Washington and the Washington Post both have the news that Metro is hoping to name former New Jersey Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles as interim head of the agency on Thursday. The Post reports that Metro Board Chairman Peter Benjamin confirms they do not currently have a contract with Sarles, but that he “is certainly a person we would like to appoint.”

Benjamin goes on to praise Sarles’s background, and calls him “solid on safety.” Sarles was appointed head of NJ Transit in 2007 after five years as Assistant Executive Director for Capital Programs and Planning there. He retired in January. Before working for NJ Transit, Sarles was at Amtrak where he led development of the Northeast Corridor High-Speed Rail program. He also has an engineering and project management background that spanned 20 years at the Port Authority.

Salres obviously has the chops to deal with the problems facing Metro. We aren’t privy to the interview process, and not living in the NY/NJ area, are not as familiar with his thinking on transit. Luckily, Sarles participates as a panel expert on the National Journal‘s transportation blog, commenting on many of the issues facing transportation planners. Read on for a little bit of insight.

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The Daily Feed
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There Will Be A Test. It Will Just Be A Test.

Photo courtesy of
‘Metro Station Platform’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’

Should you be near the Friendship Heights Metro station this Wednesday around midnight, you’ll be seeing a fair amount of law enforcement, as the Metro Transit Police Department’s special response team, the FBI, DCPD, DCFD and emergency medical services personnel practice a staged emergency response exercise.

According to WMATA’s website, the exercise (a staged shootout) will test their communication and joint response to a major incident on the Metrorail or Metrobus.

Metro should not be delayed as the drill will take place shortly after Metro closes for the evening.  Police activity will remain in the area until around 3:30 a.m.

The Daily Feed
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Metro Board Turns to Former General Manager

Photo courtesy of
‘arriving’
courtesy of ‘volcanojw’

David Gunn, a transit specialist and former WMATA general manager, has been tapped by the Metro board of directors to study the agency and report back on what it would take to fix it, the Washington Post reports.

Gunn, who headed up Metro from 1991-1994, is highly regarded in transit circles and his career spans most transit agencies on the East coast (including New York, Toronto, and Boston), most recently heading up Amtrak until clashes with the Bush administration led to his dismissal.

The Post mentions that Gunn doesn’t own a computer or cell phone, nor does he use email. I find that oddly fascinating, and his reasoning revolves around not being so available that it makes all problems float up instead of being solved below. Here’s hoping the board listens to Gunn’s (presumably typed up) report.