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In case it wasn't obvious when you boarded the Metrorail system this morning, WMATA says it did indeed finish up that major rail interlocking replacement and bridge work that saw three Metro stations on the Green and Yellow lines closed for the entire three-day weekend. Also notable: Metro counted 64,228 people who took advantage of the free shuttle buses that were moving riders around the closures. That figure is just shy of the 68,000 or so who used the shuttles during the similar Labor Day weekend closures.
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We went to the Macy's at 12th & G this morning for the Black Friday morning specials. There was a sh
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Isn't that something like nearly 10% of their usual weekday Metrorail ridership? Dear god.
As far as the Labor Day closures, they were definitely stupid as we all know, because it can be assumed that people might travel during that weekend, and closing a station at an airport is monumentally unhelpful. Regarding yesterday's closures, I guess Metro assumed that it would be no biggie for government employees and a handful of others who actually got the day off, but how about the rest of us? Oh well, at least my stations weren't CLOSED. My only gripe was waiting 12 minutes for an Orange Line train and then having to share the track / wait at Rosslyn for Yellow Line trains to go by (you'd think with 12 minutes between trains, they could get the timing of that worked out better).
Any data on what percentage of D.C. workers actually get Columbus Day off? I work for GW, the largest private employer in town, and we had to work. That's well over 10,000 folks right there.
So let's see. They can't close on Labor Day. Or Columbus Day. Any other good long weekends? Thanksgiving? Hell no. Memorial Day? Nope. President's Day? Well if Columbus Day isn't any good, certainly President's Day doesn't work either. Am I missing any?
I realize that Metro has to close certain stations and tracks at certain times and dates for maintenance work. I'm just saying that closing a travel-centric station on a travel-centric holiday is dumb (re: Labor Day), and closing stations where people work on a day that not even a majority of D.C. workers seem to get off (re: Columbus Day) is maybe not such a good idea considering that nearly 10% of their normal daily ridership had to use the shuttles.
I also realize that a lot of this work is time- and situation-specific and it can't always be planned. I don't have any solutions, and I certainly didn't say that Metro can never close any stations ever. I'd just like to see data on their average ridership through those particular stations on those particular holidays. It might've been a better idea to close National Airport on a non-holiday weekend a week BEFORE Labor Day, for example.
it would be interesting to see if ridership on actual, revenue bus lines went up by an appreciable amount while the stations were closed, to see if regular rail riders actually know how to deal with the bus system us schlubs deal with more regularly.
There seemed to be an army of yellow-vested workers at every closed station. Could it be that Metro actually made its management employees leave the glass tower and work the streets?
As inconvenient as the actual closures might have been, Metro did a pretty damn good job of the relief measures. I was at Gallery Place on Friday night and they had shuttle buses pulling up every 3 minutes or so. Plus they were running multiple routes, with express services to Anacostia and Navy Yard. At Gallery Place, they had multiple Metro reps on each platform to answer questions, and the brochures were a nice touch also.