Do you live on the Green Line and have a job that requires you to take Metro to get to work on Columbus Day? You may want to think about taking a sick day -- WMATA will close the Shaw, U Street and Columbia Heights stations from 10 p.m. on Friday, October 8 until opening on Tuesday, October 11. more ›

UPDATE: The woman has reportedly recanted, saying she was in a fight at her home instead of being injured on WMATA property. more ›

Were you one of the lucky few who were able to postpone your Monday morning commute until this morning's Metro mess was resolved? Well, we're hearing that normal service between Reagan National Airport and Braddock Road has now been restored. more ›

A Metrorail operator will reportedly receive "refresher training" after a clip surfaced on YouTube earlier this week showing the driver speaking with a rider through the door while operating a Yellow Line train. more ›

On September 10, 2009, John Moore, a 44-year-old Metro employee who was working on a section of track between Braddock Road and National Airport was struck by an oncoming train. Moore later died as a result of those injuries, becoming the third Metro employee fatality in a three-month span after the June 22 Red Line crash. Now that you've been reminded of that, you'll probably just as flabbergasted as I was to hear that a group of Metro workers were nearly run down last month near the same section of track where Moore was killed. Adam Tuss reports via Twitter that a "near miss," involving a group of maintenance workers, occurred last month: the workers were on the outbound tracks, when a broken-down train on the inbound side led Metro operators to reroute trains to the outbound side -- but they never told the workers that the trains were coming. Luckily, someone saw the train coming and the workers were able to avoid injury. At least Metro immediately reported the incident to the Tri-State Oversight Committee. more ›

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. more ›

A friendly Friday afternoon reminder from your pals here at DCist about this weekend's Metrorail closures along the Green and Yellow lines. Don't forget that the Waterfront-SEU and Archives-Navy Mem’l-Penn Quarter stations will be closed completely, along with Green Line service at L’Enfant Plaza, starting at 10:30 p.m. tonight and lasting through closing on Monday, Oct. 12. more ›

The Post's Lena H. Sun followed up this morning on what caused last night's disruption and emergency track work at Mt Vernon Sq 7th St-Convention Center: a train that carried no passengers derailed. more ›

Man, what a day. Just to update those of you still reading at this late hour: Metro is now reporting "emergency track work" at Mt Vernon Sq 7th St-Convention Center. Trains are sharing the same track between Mt.Vernon Sq and U Street-Cardozo stations, causing delays in both directions, and as of 7:10 p.m., they don't expect it to be fixed for at least 2 more hours. Add this Green/Yellow line delay to the existing problems on the Orange line between East Falls Church and West Falls Church, and you've got a really long late evening commute for all the workaholics still at their desks (or, preferably, those of you heading out to bars). Good luck out there. more ›

We mentioned it earlier this week, but it's worth a reminder: Metro is shutting down the Yellow line rail bridge over the Potomac River this weekend to do track maintenance and conduct an annual bridge inspection. This means that the Yellow line will operate only between Huntington and Arlington Cemetery starting tonight at 10 p.m. through Sunday at midnight. You read that right -- there will be no Yellow line service between the Pentagon and Fort Totten stations all weekend, so Yellow line (and Green, for that matter) customers should expect delays of at least 20 minutes, and anyone traveling south of the Pentagon should take the Blue Line if possible. more ›

Due to security surrounding the dedication of the new Pentagon Memorial on Thursday morning, all Metrobus service that would usually run through the Pentagon Transit Center will be rerouted to Pentagon City. The Center services a good number of bus routes, so if your commute takes you through Northern Virginia on a bus, we'd recommend looking in to some alternate plans on Thursday. Metrorail service at and through the Pentagon station will not be affected. more ›

Metro sent around a press release yesterday announcing that they were considering alternating rush hour Blue line trains between their regular route that follows the Orange line and a new route that would send them up along the Yellow line. more ›

Via WMATA:The Pentagon Metrorail station was closed at 2:42 p.m. this afternoon to allow officials to investigate a report of a suspicious package at the station. Trains are not passing through the station. Instead, Blue and Yellow Line stations are turning back at the stations on each side of the Pentagon Metrorail station--at Pentagon City Metrorail station and Arlington Cemetery Metrorail station. Officials have requested shuttle buses at those stations to move customers around the... more ›

The rush to get out of D.C. to family Thanksgiving celebrations has already begun, but if you're still reading DCist, you're probably still at work and planning on leaving within the next 72 hours. Whether opening up that military airspace will really make a difference at Washington area airports remains to be seen, but WMATA has announced a special Thanksgiving weekend schedule that could stand to help out many of you trying to take public... more ›

If you're heading to any Yellow line destinations this weekend, including National Airport, you should make alternate plans. Metro is shutting down the Yellow line rail bridge over the Potomac River this weekend to do track maintenance and conduct an annual bridge inspection. The closure begins tonight at 10 p.m. and lasts through Sunday at midnight. Directions from WMATA: When a Yellow Line train arrives at the King Street Metrorail station, passengers must transfer to... more ›

It's Friday, D.C., and if you live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, you may have suffered a lengthy power outage yesterday after a manhole exploded and injured a Pepco worker in the area. The worker suffered second degree burns but will recover. If you're a bit of a science geek like us, you immediately began Googling something like "How exactly do manholes explode?" after you read the above story, so allow us to save you... more ›

As of yesterday, Metro was placed among the many city agencies with pricey downtown digs currently being considered for more a affordable address. Mayor Fenty approached Metro yesterday with the idea of selling its eight-story headquarters at 600 5th St. in Northwest and relocating to a new, state-of-the-art facility at the Anacostia Metro station. Fenty and city officials say that such a move would provide an economic boon to both the downtown and Southeast areas,... more ›

Happy Friday, D.C. It's sunny out, this weekend is apparently going to be gorgeous (72 degrees!), and on Thursday, the D.C. Voting Rights Act passed the House of Representatives. In order to avoid a repeat of last time, Democrats broke the voting rights measure into two bills -- one that would add the extra seats in the house and the other a PAY-GO bill to fund them. They were both written so narrowly that Republicans... more ›

You'll forgive us, we hope, if when we first saw this headline, we let out an exasperated "not again!" But it wasn't a Metrobus that was involved with the death of a man earlier this afternoon. Police are still investigating how the still unidentified man ended up on the tracks at the Columbia Heights metro station, in the path of an incoming Yellow Line train. The WaPo has limited details so far. It would be... more ›

When the Feds close down, rush hour in D.C. begins. In order to accommodate this frozen federal exodus, Metro has has been running on its evening rush hour schedule since 1 p.m. this afternoon. This morning's problems on the Blue and Yellow Line have been resolved, so barring any further incidents, all you Metro commuters should have a smooth(ish) ride home. more ›

Good morning, Washington. How was your State of the Union viewing experience? We hope that "enjoyable" is the answer — although not so enjoyable that you now have a State of the Union hangover experience (don't you love living in a city where such a thing is a possibility?). Whatever your experience, this morning it seems like some of the week's frantic political energy is draining out of the city, as the shot to the... more ›

UPDATE: Sam in the comments points out that the WMATA web site has no current service alerts posted, so it appears the Mt. Vernon Square station is now open. Anyone been over there this morning? A few more details are available from the Post this morning about yesterday's Green Line derailment, though it's still not known when the Mt. Vernon Square stop will re-open. In all 20 people were injured, all of them minor except... more ›

The Washington Post reports what some of you who've been out using Metro today may have already heard: six-car train on the Green Line derailed just before 4 p.m. this afternoon near the Mt. Vernon Square/Convention Center stop, injuring 20 people, one of those seriously. The Associated Press has more, describing the 45-minute wait approximately 60 people had before being reached by fire crews and helped out of the tunnel. This from AP:The accident happened... more ›

Due to Budgetary Constraints, Metro's Yellow Line Extension Was Less Than Riders Had Hoped For... We usually try to pick photos for Transit on Thursday (or Friday, as it were) that are either related to the post or simply creative new shots of all things Metro. This week left us without much of a theme, and the pickin's of new Metro-related photos in the DCist Flickr pool were pretty slim (hint, hint). So we... more ›

>> Soon-to-be Mayor Fenty has named Brian K. Lee as interim fire chief and attorney Matthew Cutts to chair the Sports and Entertainment Commission, as well as three mayoral appointments to the D.C. Board of Education: Laura McGiffert Slover, Tonya Vidal Kinlow, and Herb Scott. [WaPo] >> The Yellow Line extension is Coming! The Yellow Line is extension is coming! On Sunday. [AP via WTOP] >> Eric Schaeffer of Signature Theater reveals the wild partying... more ›

This year has proved to be quite a ride for D.C.'s commuters, travelers, and residents. There were highs: record ridership, the Yellow Line extension (scheduled for Saturday!), the rollout of NextBus, Tangherlini's arrival. There were lows: MetroAccess troubles, worker fatalities, Virginia politicians, Tangherlini's departure. And of course, there was more traffic. more ›

A woman was hit by a train on Metro's Orange Line just before 10:30 this morning. The accident occurred at the Deanwood station on the inbound track. Emergency personel are on the scene, but there is no information about the condition of the victim. The Post is reporting the posibility of a suicide. Trains are sharing one track from New Carrollton to Stadium-Armory station, creating a 10-15 minute delay in both directions of the... more ›

Seriously. Who doesn't love the law of supply and demand? We all learned about it in Econ 101. Yet so few seem to understand it. Maybe that's because so few of us took Econ 102 . Or maybe just because its more fun to simply twist it to justify whatever policy or proposal you want. Either way, after the jump we have this week's supply of transit news. The Examiner offers up more transit wisdom,... more ›

>> New Police Chief Cathy Lanier on being a woman in the Metropolitan Police Dept.: "Lanier says she wants to tell her story so it will help other women who face similar challenges. She describes how she faced a constant barrage of sexual harassment when she first came on the force in 1990. 'I've had police officers expose themselves to me riding around in a patrol car. {I was} assigned with a training officer who... more ›

We were a bit preoccupied by the accident on the Yellow Line yesterday, and are a day late with your weekly transit news and reviews. So here it is, all packaged in one tasty, bite-sized, morsel. This week: Could car-sharing be the Next Big Thing? Why are Fairfax County employees so scheisty? Big brother - coming to a road near you! Transit efforts renewed in Va., Md. Also, perhaps as an early present, Metro is... more ›