Too bad the rest of the green line will still have 20-minute waits... Regarding the yellow line, why does this only during non-rush hour periods? I thought part of the justification was the large increase in demand in the Columbia Heights vicinity. Wouldn't it make sense to run yellow trains up there when demand is greatest, i.e. rush hour?

During rush hour, there is about a 10 minute wait between green line trains. During the off peak hours, it is sometimes a 20 minute wait. Having the yellow line will reduce the waiting time when it is late on a weekend night or during the day.

Jared: Six minutes. There's a 6-minute wait for Green Line trains at rush hour. There's a 12-minute wait for Green Line trains in the middle of the day on weekdays.

Adding rush-hour Yellow Line service to the Mid-City stations would require more railcars, as during rush hour all rail cars are already being used between the various lines to give 3-6 minute headways. More cars = millions and millions of dollars and long leadtime, plus they'd probably be assigned to create 8-car trains on all lines before extending the Yellow Line. So it ain't gonna happen.

Additionally, there is no third "pocket" track after the Ft. Totten Station. With longer non-rush hour headways, it's still feasable to turn the cars around by crossing over to the opposite track; during rush hour however, the 3-minute headways would make this difficult w/o the pocket track and would probably cause delays to build up as cars back up.

During non-rush hours times, with 12-15 minute headways, there are cars available to extend the Yellow line through Mid-City, and the only additional costs are extra electricity, extra maintenance, new maps/signage, and extra labor.

did anyone catch this article in the post?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/20/AR2006042001350.html

they are apparently expanding stuff on the red line too:

"Metro officials agreed today to experiment with increased 

service on the Yellow Line through the middle of 

Washington to Fort Totten and on the Red Line 

from Grosvenor to Shady Grove in the Maryland suburbs."

"Under the proposal, trains on the Yellow Line 

and Red Line would operate every six minutes 

instead of every 12 minutes during weekday off-peak. 

On weekends, when trains operate every 15 minutes, 

service will increase to every 7.5 to 8 minutes."

The capital costs are to upgrade the "turnaround" at Ft. Totten and change all the maps and signs to reflect the extension of the Yellow Line.

And with the 18-month period, perhaps it could eventually be extended to Greenbelt if proven successful. (Remember, in 2007 it's possible Maryland will have a new governor, one more favorably disposed to mass transit than Ehrlich.)