It's been quite a week for the Orange line, with three long delays in three days (not to mention last week's storm-related delays). Monday's derailment of a train between the Rosslyn and Court House stations left people clamoring for a way to get home, but luckily, it wasn't as severe as it could have been. Of course, no one would argue that being stuck in a tunnel for a long time with air conditioning on one of the most oppressively hot days of the year isn't tough, but imagine what could have happened instead.

Last year's derailment at the Mt. Vernon Square station injured almost 20 people. That accident led federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board to question Metro's overall safety for its passengers. In 1982, a derailment between the Smithsonian and Federal Triangle stations caused three fatalities, 25 injuries, and the complete shut down of the Blue and Orange lines - at the same time that an Air Florida flight crashed into the 14th Street Bridge. It is the only time that a passenger has been killed by an accident in the agency's history. No one was injured in a 2003 derailment outside of the Washington National Airport station, but it could have gotten ugly, with a train sliding and sparking over the third rail on a 30-foot high bridge.

Metro's safety record is pretty much on par with other major metropolitan transit systems, and six derailments with passenger trains in over 30 years is not a terrible mark, though it could be better.

In the end, the NTSB isn't planning on investigating this week's accident. In terms of getting people where they need to go quickly, Metro is having a very bad week. But as far as safety goes, it could have been turned out much, much worse - and for that, we're thankful.

Photo by Kevin H.

Amtrak/Metro Bill Working its Way Through Congress: Big news from the Hill yesterday, as the House overwhelmingly passed the $15 billion funding bill for Amtrak service, by a veto-overriding vote of 311-104. But the really exciting part of this for us Washingtonians is that the bill passed with an amendment which would provide $1.5 billion in funding for Metro. Fortunately, no one in the House believes WMATA to be baby killers. This is good news, but before we get too ahead of ourselves, the Senate will have to re-vote on the bill with the Metro amendment (they passed a version without it last October), and Virginia will need to work out its transportation funding mess (which it will need to provide the requisite matching funds) before Metro will see any of the money.

WMATA Sharing Data with Google: Google Transit, which integrates transit schedules with those ubiquitous Google Maps, took flight in 2005, but Metro only decided to jump on board recently. As Infosnack Headquarters notes, John Catoe confirmed the fact that Metro is working with Google to try and get the system to sync up with the schedule as well as Metro's Trip Planner does. Additionally, Maryland Transit Administration schedules were added to the GTransit system last Friday.

Engines and Cabooses: We're not math geniuses or anything, but if our figures are right, Chevy Chase Village tickets about 350 speeders per day on speed cameras... Metro's computers couldn't read an email that said Monday was a Code Red day; also, their dog ate their homework... VRE fares went up 3 percent effective June 10... More ICC craziness: a bike trail along side the Intercounty Connector can't be built, because it could "cause environmental harm at some level." What?... Brookland Metro station will see a higher police presence after iPod thefts rise... "Thirty-eight percent of respondents from our study noted that basically they would pay anything for gas," says recent study from the Telework Exchange.