It’s been a rough week for Metro.
A D.C. water pipe broke earlier in the week, flooding a train control room, dousing decades old equipment and causing signal problems at several stations.
“No one had a good experience on the Red Line,” said Metro General Manager Randy Clarke. “Basically between Metro Center and Friendship Heights, let alone all the way up to Shady Grove.”
With those issues, on top of the ongoing construction, Metro leaders took time at a Thursday board meeting to offer explanations, empathy and recognition to riders that it’s been a frustrating week.
“What really happened is DC Water had a pipe that broke,” Clarke said. “I think it was an eight or nine inch pipe, and it flooded our train control room at Van Ness. And Van Ness controls circuits for the whole section between Van Ness and just past Friendship Heights.”
The flooding meant 5,000 feet of Metro track circuits were inoperable, just as another track issue popped up, all against a backdrop of the Red Line summer shutdown.
“You put all three together and at rush hour on a Tuesday?” Clarke said. “Compounded, it was a really bad situation.”
Metro says that everything from this week should be fixed at this point. But the agency says the recent issues on the Red Line are a perfect example of why construction and upgrades are necessary.
Metro says they need to add upgraded signals and completely replace some aging equipment. But none of the upgrades have gotten as much hype as the platform screen doors.
The transit agency says it continues to have issues with trespassers getting onto the tracks, which also slows down service.
Metro says the 5’7″ clear screen doors they are proposing for the entire Red Line will keep people where they belong, on the platform.
That said, the doors are years away from becoming a reality. Metro also says its full plan to modernize the Red Line will cost about $1.5 billion, and the agency still needs more funding to make that happen.
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/LWxKy8R
0 Comments