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WMATA announced today it completed the work it intended to do during this past holiday weekend, work which forced the complete closure of three Metro stations, including National Airport, Pentagon City and Crystal City. Metro's track workers replaced four track switches at the Pentagon City station, along with 2,000 feet of rail and more than 735 ties. They also performed repairs along the National Airport station's aerial structure, conducted fire line maintenance and installed cable to upgrade cell phone service at those stations.
In the facts and figures department: only 165,000 people took Metrorail trips on Monday, September 7, down significantly from last Labor Day, when Metro served 227,000 people. Free shuttle buses designed to get passengers around the closures served approximately 68,000 people over the course of the entire weekend, though there have been reports of bad signage and communication in terms of how and where to board the buses.
Still, Metro is claiming the weekend's work, and especially the decision to do it over the holiday weekend, as a victory. The work got done, the agency says doing it this way saved them a ton of money, and fewer riders were affected than if they had done it at a different time.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the very next holiday weekend will see similar closures at three different Metrorail stations: On Columbus Day Weekend, from 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9, through Monday, Oct. 12, the Waterfront-SEU and Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter stations will close completely, and Green and Yellow Line service will also will be closed at the L’Enfant Plaza station so that Metro can perform the same sort of total switch replacement work at L'Enfant Plaza. In addition, Metro will close the Yellow Line Bridge over the Potomac River to conduct an annual safety inspection and conduct track maintenance. This means that there will be no Yellow Line in the District of Columbia or Maryland over the Columbus Day weekend. The Blue and Orange Line at the L’Enfant Plaza station will not be affected.
The same news release also includes planned single-tracking over the next four weekends in a row in the same area while Metro prepares to perform the switch replacement. Customers should expect delays along the Green and Yellow lines in this area for the next month, and riders accustomed to having Yellow Line extension service to Ft. Totten on the weekends will get four weekends in a row of old-school, to Mt. Vernon Sq. service only.
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But, what if the Nationals make it to the playoffs? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
The signs at national airport sucked, I followed them for a while and ended up at a sign pointing back the way I had just come. Luckily they all seemed to point to the "Information Desk," where the helpful woman told me where to go.
I should have just ignored the signs and done the obvious: go outside and look around. The buses picked you up pretty much where all the other buses do. There were plenty of buses, we didn't wait very long, and while things were pretty surreal at the Pentagon Metro, it worked out just fine.
So, seemed like business as usual for Metro: things weren't actually all that bad, but communication was horrible.
Yeah, the "helpful" people at the information kisoks are very good at telling people where to go. And why is it that Metrorail fails so badly in providing adequate signage and personnel when they have to resort to bus shuttles? I understand there's bound to be chaos when it's an emergency situation, but there's just no excuse for the cluster fuck this weekend when they--self admittedly--had the work planned for months.
I didn't have time to see the signs at pentagon.. Metro employees were there on the spot shouting which direction to go for which bus. Buses were labeled quite clearly too.
My only concern is that I didn't know that trains were single tracking across the Potomac (it probably said this, but either buried too deep or in between the lines). I planned for regular yellow line service to Pentagon, which didn't happen.
Otherwise, not bad at all.
So those of us who have to work on Columbus Day are now screwed. At least before it was over a weekend.
It was a big mistake buying this subway from the CHUDs. Any way we can give it back to them? Or at least getting them to hire some of those sexy Morlock conductors? After that old 930 Club smell, I miss the sexy Morlock conductors the most.
I flew home through National on Monday, and it was a mess. The signage was vague and useless. By the time we found the buses we had been up and down the stairs multiple times. Employees we encountered were rude and gave misleading directions. Whoever selected the shuttle bus pick up point was an idiot. It should have been on the LOWER level where arriving passengers naturally go for ground transportation.
Also, not looking forward to, well, the entire fall season apparently, on the Green and Yellow Lines. Didn't they just do all this work a couple of years ago? Seroiusly, with the poor communication, deteriorating service, and STILL delays on the Red Line due to the fatal accident, it's time for Catoe to resign. Bring back Dan Tangherlini!
I'm pretty sure DanTan would be unlikely to give up his job working for the President of the United States to take back a worse position he had two jobs ago. But I'm just guessing.
Columbus Day is a holiday?!
That was my thought. Unlike with Labor Day, most non-government employees do not get Columbus Day off.
They "finished", eh? Hmm, so why were there delays between Braddock Rd and National Airport this morning that Metro has just now (5:30pm) decided to announce. Trains having to travel at 5 mph does not seem fixed to me.
Guess they don't care that a major march/event is scheduled for the Mall that weekend do they?