WTOP’s Adam Tuss reported yesterday on a new report that shows Metro’s on time performance and reliability is actually getting worse, and this morning the Washington Post follows up with a front-page story on the same subject. The bottom line? Metro isn’t even coming close to meeting its performance goal of having 95 percent of all trains running on schedule.

In November, the latest month in which Metro has stats available, only 85 percent of trains were on-time during the morning rush, while even fewer, 83 percent, were on-time in the evening. Those figures are down from November last year, when trains in the morning were on-time 90 percent of the time, and trains in the evening were at 87 percent.

The main problems keeping Metro from operating on schedule are apparently mechanical and door problems. How many times have you been on a train and had the doors take too long to open? Exactly. So despite some skepticism expressed in yesterday’s comments about the need for newer rail cars, perhaps focusing on getting rid of old cars that cause significant delays should be welcomed as a bigger priority for the transit agency.

Photo by digital don