Metro will shut down sections of lines for year-long subway repair work

By Paul Duggan, Lori Aratani and Robert McCartney May 6 at 11:30 AM

After decades of maintenance neglect, Metro next month will begin a massive subway rebuilding effort that will inconvenience virtually everyone who uses the system, with portions of most rail lines shut down for up to a month at a time and reductions in train service throughout the year-long project, officials said Friday.

The service disruptions will have ripple effects across the region as local governments and employers will be asked to make adjustments — whether it be changing HOV-lane restrictions to ease the anticipated increase in road traffic or allowing employees to work from home or modify their schedules.

“It’s what needs to be done,” General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld declared in an interview before he began outlining his ambitious plan at a late-morning news conference.

“It’s going to impact people’s lives; it’s going to impact businesses, all of that,” he said of the infrastructure overhaul, which is expected to cause more commuting headaches for longer periods than any previous track work in the subway’s 40-year history.

With the system addled by maintenance neglect — caught in a sometimes calamitous spiral of breakdowns and other failures — a day of reckoning has arrived, he said.

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