Transit on Thursdays: Call Your Friends Edition
You might be able to finally use your non-Verizon cell phone in Metro tunnels. Just don't hold your breath.
Metro's finance board voted and gave the OK on a preliminary measure to solicit proposals for lining all stations and underground tracks with a wireless system that would allow for customers to use their phones underground, regardless of carrier. The new system would also provide wireless internet and fix Metro's broken radio system - which they've been having intermittent issues with dating all the way back to 2006. Additionally (and for certain, a more useful part of this proposal), the system would allow Metrorail cars to be outfitted with information-sharing flat screens - imagining the ability to find out, while riding an Orange line train, exactly how long the wait is to transfer to a Red line train at Metro Center makes us pretty giddy. The flat-screens would also become a bright, new source of advertising revenue for an organization that's actively searching for some. Considering that Metro only received $28,000 in usage fees from Verizon last year - which could jump to between $200,000 and $2 million per year with a new system - it's probably a sound financial investment.
The downside to this would certainly be the lengthy work that would be required. Officials estimate that the installation of a new system, which would take place only after the system closes at night, would take somewhere between 18 months and four years to complete. With all the other urgent, basic work that needs to be done (see our report post-jump), should this upgrade be taking a back seat?
After the jump: a new Transit Police Chief, and said vital infrastructure issues.
Photo by Aziz Y.
Phones Are Nice, But Platforms Are Probably More Important: Obviously, Metro is not in the greatest shape, infrastructure-wise. In fact, the system has some repairs that need to be made as soon as possible - important things like, for instance, crumbling platforms and "hundreds of thousands of track fasteners that have to be replaced because they have become outdated and could help spark fires." Yikes. Metro's Board of Directors is meeting today to see what can be done about fixing these problems immediately (and where the $489 million it will take to fix them will come from).
New Sheriff In Town: Michael Taborn, Metro's new Transit Police Chief, was officially introduced to the public yesterday. Taborn, who spent the last six years working with the Federal Transportation Administration, had previously worked for Metro for 28 years -- meaning he was there when the first trains roll down the tracks in 1976. His credentials are solid without question - but one wonders what sort of initiatives he'll introduce after his initial 90-day assessment of the Transit Police. He doesn't mention it explicitly, but WTOP's Adam Tuss plants a seed that random bag searches may be part of the plan - of course, Amtrak recently decided to adopt a similar random search policy, and New York City has been doing it (not without controversy and a lawsuit, of course) for over three years. With transit crime rising at a swift rate, we'll be waiting to see what reforms are in line.
Engines and Cabooses: Prince William County earns $100,000 grant to explore BRT options along Route 1 as an alternative to rail transit...Finally, the last weekend of Red Line work at Van Ness-UDC - last weekend, ToT recieved reports of trips between Van Ness-UDC and Dupont Circle taking almost 45 minutes to complete...Some Metrobus changes will be going into effect on March 30, so plan your routes accordingly.