Last week’s Red Line train crash at Woodley Park is sending transit shockwaves all the way to New York. Gothamist reports that a Metropolitan Transportation Authority union is using the metrorail crash in D.C. as a talking point against the MTA converting the L train/14th St.-Canarsie Line to full computerized automation. The union contends that because the metrorail system in D.C. is automated, there is an increased risk of mishaps underground.
But we think the Daily News may have gotten some of its homework wrong. The newspaper says that the train that crashed at Woodley Park was automated, which is not the case. The out-of-service train that lost its brakes on the way to the Shady Grove rail yard (and then rolled backwards into another train at Woodley Park) was being driven manually at the time.
