Cruel Summer for WMATA, Metro Washington DC's public transit agency

via MassTransitMag:



Another Bad Day for Washington Metro in a Deadly Summer

Kytja Weir
The Washington Examiner


WASHINGTON, DC - Metro faced yet another bad day in what is amounting to a terrible and deadly summer.

A subcontractor working at a Metro bus garage was apparently electrocuted Tuesday morning, dying after getting shocked while wiring an air compressor. By afternoon, a fire had erupted on the Orange Line. Then a cracked rail was found on the beleaguered Red Line, causing delays in the start of the evening commute.

Yet Tuesday was hardly the worst day in a summer in which the transit agency has faced the worst crash in its 33-year history, a track worker was killed, several people committed suicide on the rails, trains overran stations, fires broke out, riders were trapped in an elevator for 90 minutes, and Metro employees were fired and arrested while misbehaving on the job. Metro officials say the summer isn't normal. "If you had to make a list, you couldn't make these up," Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. But officials have no explanation for why so many incidents, including the June crash that killed nine and injured more than 70, have occurred this summer. "Our customers are smart enough to know these are very unusual circumstances," Farbstein said. Still, ridership for both the rail and bus services dropped in July, officials said. Metro officials have responded to the incidents by clamping down on safety several times and tightening rules on erring Metro employees, including changing the policy so any employee who uses a cell phone while driving a bus or train is fired. Still, the incidents are occurring. And the bodies are mounting, with at least 14 people killed since the start of June. In the latest fatal incident, a subcontractor working at the Bladensburg bus garage in Northeast D.C. was apparently electrocuted around 8:40 a.m. Tuesday while wiring a new air compressor, Farbstein said. The man, whose name was not available Tuesday, worked for Jaxson Point Inc. of King George, Va., under M&M Welding and Fabricators Inc. in Gaithersburg. D.C. police are investigating the death, and the agency is conducting an internal investigation. In the latest Metro infrastructure failure, a cracked rail was found on the Red Line between the Friendship Heights and Bethesda Metrorail stations Tuesday afternoon. The problem, spotted during a track inspection, meant trains had to share a single track for nearly three hours, causing delays along the line. As Red Line delays mounted, a train operator spotted smoke outside the Deanwood station on the Orange Line on Tuesday afternoon. A wooden crosstie on the tracks was smoldering. The operator offloaded the train at the station while the fire was put out, then passengers got back on. Unlike the hours-long Red Line delays, the Orange Line was back on schedule within 12 minutes.


http://www.masstransitmag.com/web/online/Top-Transit-News/Another-Bad-Day-for-Washington-Metro-in-a-Deadly-Summer/3$9391

Aren't DC, Maryland and VA always squabbling over who pays for what?

Finding cracked rails is good. It's the cracked rails they don't find in time that end up being nothing but trouble.

Give that track inspector, or whoever found it, an "attaboy."

Funding is only an issue because of the stupid way the transit association was set up in the first place. Lisa Farbstien is the worst PR person I've ever heard. She does a poor job of explaining metros position.

"you couldnt make these up". Wow what a compassionate line about some incidents were humans lost their lives.

Funding wouldn't be as much of a problem had they not let their parking lot attendants steal millions of dollars a year. No accountability.

and it's been hell for him.

When we moved to the DC area 19 years ago, Metro ran well, but it's been on a downhill track of incompetence and mismanagement in recent years.

I estimate that I've lost two entire days of my life this summer because of the perpetual delays and slow running. It's been friggin awful.

I think someone in WMATA management made a bet that they could drive a passenger to go postal by the end of the year. I think it was a safe bet.

The sudden sweats followed by nausea that disappears within about 20 mins of getting off the train?

Which is probably bad enough to induce nausea.

a woman asked for my seat as she "was not feeling well" and this started a conversation among several folks about having experienced the same thing - only in the afternoon/evening - when the trains had less fresh air.

The carpets are chock full of mold. They need to rip them out. NY, Toronto, Moscow, London don't have carpeting.

but my DH travels from Shady Grove to Farragut North and back on the Red Line every weekday. I never know how long it will take him to get home.

This summer he frequently has to catch a train going in the opposite direction of where he's going, and get off a couple of stations up the line, in order to catch a train that isn't full to bursting point.

To make matters worse, the operators take trains out of service constantly if people are touching the doors. They force everyone to get off the train and wait for yet another crowded train to come along.

But you know all that.

I wish the NTSB or some other agency would crack down on Metro and force them to operate a decent rail service.

In summer I could only manage 3 days a week because of the heat.

But it sure beat being stuffed in railcars with malfunctioning AC, etc.

"Red Line" disease really does exist, and, no doubt - on other Metro rail lines. Those carpets are filthy and full of mold.

that would run primarily during A.M and P.M rush hours and run minimally during any other time.

As DC developed more into a social city with an increasingly around the clock evening and weekend "night life" the system was put under more strain than it was initially built to accomodate. If I recall correctly it was only after 2000 that the system stayed open past midnight even on Friday and Saturday night.

Also, it doesn't help that the system was designed as a two lane highway with only one track running in any given direction which is why breakdowns totally shut down the system.

http://metro.ru/stations/arbatsko-pokrovskaya/strogino/

See them all here:

http://metro.ru/

As subways go, its not a bad system, easy to understand and cleaner than average. (although touching the escalator handrails grosses me out, considering that 50,000 people touch it a day)

But man, I don't know how people do it everyday. By the end of the week, I was SO glad to get back to my car and head home, away from the crush of humanity underground.