Thursday, July 09, 2015

Metro fails Bethesda again (Photos) #WMATA

This many people were waiting
for a shuttle to escape the
shuttered Bethesda Metro station
Wednesday morning...
Commuters were greeted Wednesday morning with the not-so-rare news that trains would be bypassing the Bethesda Metro station due to a (what-a-shock) escalator outage. But what Metro does next typifies the customer service riders have come to expect.

Shuttles were supposed to take would-be subway riders north to the Medical Center station. But during late rush hour, somebody decided to lowball just how many commuters they thought would need the shuttles.

As the line of waiting passengers grew, a bus finally appeared. But those unable to squeeze themselves into the rolling sardine can were left behind to wait.
...and they're all supposed
to fit onto this
Even Metro's biggest apologist, Dr. Gridlock in the Washington Post, appeared to be somewhat distancing himself from the organizational fiasco known as WMATA after the recent death of a passenger on a smoke-filled train. Alas, he's slipping back into his over-rationalization ways in more recent columns.

It's not getting better. The station-closing work plan hasn't worked. And Richard Sarles was hands-down the worst head of the system in its history.

One recent bright spot - the plan to turn around less trains at Grosvenor - was overshadowed by complaints that inbound trains are now even more crowded for those south of Rockville.

Bethesda deserves better. A real leader for Metro, reliable basic service, better handling of emergencies, and 8-car trains on the Red Line would be a start.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh for Pete's sake they at least need to be honest with riders about how many shuttle busses are coming. A taxi to Friendship Heights split two or three ways isn't that much. Just tell the people!

Anonymous said...

Who's deciding which photos we need to pick? Last week I needed to pick Italian ice as a type of ice cream and now the only sandwiches pictured were hamburgers!

Anonymous said...

I know they are planning weekend closures next year but maybe they should really consider a station by station 3 month at a time total closure and work 24/7. Get the work done all at once and then leave the station in peace for a while. Yeah it would suck for those 3 months, but then we'd be on our way.

I am looking forward to the south entrance being built with the arrival of the Purple Line.

Anonymous said...

A crosstown bus alternative would be nice. Maybe a BRT.

Anonymous said...

I used to have so much patience with the Red Line from Bethesda to Union Station and back each day, but it has become such a crap shoot lately that I have started driving downtown. This is not what I want to do, but the number of disabled trains and escalators is very hard to deal with. I hate Metro; the stations are dirty and leaky and the technology unreliable.

Anonymous said...

"Even Metro's biggest apologist, Dr. Gridlock in the Washington Post"

More Dyer BS. Dr. Gridlock is much more of an apologist for cars.

Anonymous said...

Do you realize that not having enough 8-car trains is strictly a funding issue, not a management issue?

Anonymous said...

8:10 AM:
Not having more 8-car train is only partly a funding issue.
It is indeed mainly a management issue: The planning and opening of the Silver Line without additional available trains was a management mistake.
And more importantly, the use of more 8-car trains leads to more power running along the third rail, leading to more arcing insulator, caused by the mismanagement of the maintenance program (see NTSB report following the Jan 2015 death of Carol Glover).

Every single problems on Metro are interconnected, and the majority of the fingers are pointing toward Metro mismanagement.

Anonymous said...

This is what we get for building a half-assed metro system with single entrances and only 1 track in each direction. So glad Hogan's decided to build a half-ass Purple Line, too. Cause, I mean, learning from mistakes and thinking 30 years out is just too hard for some people.

Anonymous said...

@ 10:14 AM:

It's become a bit of a talking point that the Metro's two-track layout is somehow a freakish outlier among the world's subway systems, and that most of the rest of them use multiple-track lines. That's not true. New York's subway is the only system in which most of the lines have multiple tracks. Philadelphia, Chicago and Hong Kong each have a single line with a multiple-track section, and London has several short multiple-track sections. Other than those five, all of the rest use two-track lines only.

Anonymous said...

@10:59 and that's the category city DC should be in.

Robert Dyer said...

7:46: Are we talking about the same Dr. Gridlock who argues there should be no parking garages for far-flung suburban Metro stations, so that people will have to walk or bus to Metro? And says there'll never be a new Potomac River bridge, and that the insane, capitulate-to-the-Arlington-trolls I-66 plan makes good sense? He in no way bends over backwards for drivers the way he does to excuse Metro incompetence and War-on-Cars planning.

Anonymous said...

Arlington residents are "trolls"?

Robert Dyer said...

2:07: The ones who've held regional transportation needs hostage because they're "under the bridge" are indeed trolls.

Anonymous said...

Funny how you never use that term to describe the Town of Chevy Chase.

G. Money said...

There will never be a new Potomac River bridge.

Anonymous said...

Dyer thinks that what Bethesda really needs is a bridge and freeway connecting to Gaithersburg.

Traywick said...

I was shocked how badly organized Metro was when the station closed most of the morning.
Folks didn't know where the shuttles were even going. A lot of people thought they were heading to Friendship Heights. Medical Center is closer and makes more sense, but the fact is there was no communication.

It's not like this is a rare occurrence. Dyer has reported on other recent closures and I suspect there will be more until the escalator project is done.