January 24, 2008
Clarendon Metro Reopens After Smoke Reported
If your morning commute involved the Orange or Blue lines through Virginia, odds are good you've sat down at your desk rather late this morning. A smoking light fixture at the Clarendon Metro stop shut down service throughout Arlington around 9 a.m. this morning.
Service returned to normal about 45 minutes later, but not before passengers were forced to exit the affected Orange Line stations and stand outside in the cold waiting for shuttle buses to take them to Rosslyn. Communication between Metro officials and the stranded passengers was scarce, leading to some very frustrated Metro riders. As the morning wore on, it became every person for themselves whenever an empty shuttle bus appeared. Many of the stranded commuters packed into the nearest coffee shop waiting for the crowds to die down as delays rippled back all along the two lines. WMATA doesn't currently have any service alerts up on their web site, but you should expect residual delays for the rest of the morning.
The light fixture in question was located between the rails in the Clarendon station. The Post reports that the origin of the smoke was not immediately clear.
Photos by Kyle Gustafson. More after the jump.
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That's already a crappy place to have to get on the "Orange Line with a View." Seems like there are always tons of people lined up there to get on the bus.
Looks like the Ballston Metro to me. No Cosi outside of the Clarendon Metro.
If the smoke was in Clarendon, they would have got people off the train prior to that station. Hence, Ballston.
The pics are from Ballston to be sure; I watched the photog standing on one of the cemented-in tree/flower holders taking these snaps while the station area succumbed to looking like the evacuation of Dunkirk. What an absolute mess; WMATA needs to get their act together. The lack of communication between Metro officials and passengers was astounding.
Touche.
A buddy of mine was stuck at West Falls Church and even as the Metro announcer was telling people about the bus, the Metro station employees were telling them they'd be nuts to try getting to the buses.
I'm amazed Metro was trucking people to Court House instead of to Rosslyn. It's only another few minutes (faster if they ignore red lights like they normally do) and people would be able to hop onto mostly empty Blue line trains, too. I walked from Court House to Rosslyn and was aboard a Blue line train within minutes -- and I had my pick of seats.
Dunno Bullneck, I was stuck on one of those trains and they were informing us every 5 seconds that there was smoke in Clarendon and that's why the train was delayed. I think they shared all the information they had.
All I can say is I'm glad I brought a book with me today.
Bullneck and whoever provided info for the DCist writeup: Can you provide more details about the lack of communication? It just seems like sometimes people say there is no communication, but they're expecting Metro officials to be clairvoyant.
good thing i decided to come in early today! what chaos.
A quick summary of the lack of communication:
-- When I entered the Ballston Metro, there were no Metro employees at the main entrance or turnstiles to inform customers the station was already closed. Likewise no warning at any of the other station entrances.
-- Many people continued to enter using their metro cards. Announcements telling people who'd used their cards that they could leave via emergency exit gates were sporadic.
-- Upon emerging from Ballston, there was confusion as to which street the shuttle buses would arrive at. People generally milled around til they spotted the clusterf*ck of backed up traffic on N. Stuart and figured that was the pickup point.
-- Metro officials often slowed entry onto shuttles by standing in the doors and then gave vague answers as to whether or not the bus in question was a shuttle or even where it was going. Granted, this was while the station shutdown list expanded to include Courthouse (thus changing the original shuttle destination and instructions)
The one thing Metro did do was at least reverse the course of escalators at Ballston to speedily evacuate the station. Or maybe they were already broken. Who can tell these days with WMATA?
The only reason I'm not even more grumpy and bitter than I usually am in the morning is because the 38B bus to Ballston was fortuitously waiting for me outside the Rosslyn station as I got to the top of the escalator. From my perspective, as others have mentioned, not much else WMATA could have done - we sat at Rosslyn for about 10 minutes hearing the same update about "a situation at our Clarendon station" until they determined that they would have to shut it down and turn our train back. Not sure what the situation was like at other stations but a friend of mine headed into the city relayed a similar experience.
I was one of those that missed the sporadic announcements about going back out of the station through the emergency exits to avoid getting charged. So essentially I paid for a nonexistent commute today, as I ended up opting to work from home. Thanks Metro!
Those of us who take the blue/orange lines from the DC/MD end were late to work, too...
I'm sorry but people who expect to rely on a shuttle bus in the event of station closures are way too optimistic. When a single train of 700 commuters unloads and only 50 or so people can fit onto a bus, it's going to be a very long time before most people can be accomodated. The communication may have been very bad, but do people really expect 50 buses to show up and shuttle each train as they unload?
Was there at least a "we're sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for continuing to ride Metrorail" announced overhead? I'm sure if everyone had heard that, the situation would have improved immeasurably.
Does anyone here think people around here will ever get mad enough at WMATA's incompetence to boycott or protest?
This is ridiculous, people. They raise our fares and the trains are still crap and the buses are always late. Hell, even the fare card vending machines are always broken.
Maybe it's because all of our city employees are busy looking at porn. Anyone else see that in the Express today? I sure did. I had plenty of time to read it cover to cover this morning waiting on the Orange Line at Ballston.
Red line was a disaster this morning as well. Took me 4 trains to finally board one that was already sardine-packed at Cleveland Park.
Glad I am paying 40% more each day for such service.
I was on the orange line between VA Square and Clarendon when the train jerked to a hault and we sat for 20 minutes. We could smell the smoke but had no idea what was going on until they backed the train up to VA square and told everyone to offload because there was a fire at Clarendon and they were shutting down the station.
They didn't tell us anything about shuttle buses but I sort of assumed they'd try to set something up even though the first one didn't come until 30 minutes after I exited the metro. Cabs were also scarce and some good samaritan took a few of us to rosslyn to hop on the metro there.
I have to say, I wasn't incredibly irritated by the incident but I was mad when I got to my destination and was still charged $3.15 for my trip. The metro employee in the booth even yelled at me that I got my trip (even if it took 2 hours)and should pay. I want my money back!
I was on the orange line between VA Square and Clarendon when the train jerked to a hault and we sat for 20 minutes. We could smell the smoke but had no idea what was going on until they backed the train up to VA square and told everyone to offload because there was a fire at Clarendon and they were shutting down the station.
They didn't tell us anything about shuttle buses but I sort of assumed they'd try to set something up even though the first one didn't come until 30 minutes after I exited the metro. Cabs were also scarce and some good samaritan took a few of us to rosslyn to hop on the metro there.
I have to say, I wasn't incredibly irritated by the incident but I was mad when I got to my destination and was still charged $3.15 for my trip. The metro employee in the booth even yelled at me that I got my trip (even if it took 2 hours)and should pay. I want my money back!
I was on the orange line between VA Square and Clarendon when the train jerked to a hault and we sat for 20 minutes. We could smell the smoke but had no idea what was going on until they backed the train up to VA square and told everyone to offload because there was a fire at Clarendon and they were shutting down the station.
They didn't tell us anything about shuttle buses but I sort of assumed they'd try to set something up even though the first one didn't come until 30 minutes after I exited the metro. Cabs were also scarce and some good samaritan took a few of us to rosslyn to hop on the metro there.
I have to say, I wasn't incredibly irritated by the incident but I was mad when I got to my destination and was still charged $3.15 for my trip. The metro employee in the booth even yelled at me that I got my trip (even if it took 2 hours)and should pay. I want my money back!
The bus situation was a free-for-all nightmare. I opted to walk from Virginia Square to Rosslyn and catch an empty, yes empty, train there. Someone should have tipped off the taxicab companies. If they had been on the ball, they would have had cabs lining up to whisk people away. I heard and saw a lot of people wanting to flag down a cab. Maybe that could be part of Metro's procedure when they empty a station - notify cab companies. I would have called one, but I had left my cell phone at work - brilliant!
The bus situation was a free-for-all nightmare. I opted to walk from Virginia Square to Rosslyn and catch an empty, yes empty, train there. Someone should have tipped off the taxicab companies. If they had been on the ball, they would have had cabs lining up to whisk people away. I heard and saw a lot of people wanting to flag down a cab. Maybe that could be part of Metro's procedure when they empty a station - notify cab companies. I would have called one, but I had left my cell phone at work - brilliant!
Uh-oh. The double posting genie is back.
This is one of the days when I'm glad to be an earth-killing car commuter. The biggest hassle I experienced was having to veer around the fire trucks at the Clarendon metro on my way to 66. I had a nice view of the throngs of unhappy people waiting for buses at the VA Square and Ballston metros...