Photo by (afm).

Hey, whatever happened to that whole “cell phone service throughout the Metro” thing? Weren’t we all supposed to be getting really worked up about all the grocery list debating, relationship talk and childcare arrangement blather happening on Metrorail trains by now? Actually, not really — estimates for when you’d be actually able to make a call at Shady Grove and keep it going all the way until you hit Franconia-Springfield had long ago been pushed back to the Congressional-mandated deadline of fall 2012.

But based on this report by Ann Scott Tyson in today’s Post, we’re not expecting complete service to actually be ready by that point in time. For its part, Metro is blaming pesky, federally-recommended track work for the slowdown:

The underground work to expand service is also challenging because it is restricted to when trains are not operating, a window of about three to four hours per night.

It “is being balanced with necessary track work that is taking place to address [National Transportation Safety Board] safety recommendations and critical maintenance needs to keep the Metro system operating safely and in a state of good repair,” Metro spokeswoman Angela Gates said in an e-mail.

The transit agency and the cellular providers declined to say whether the work is on schedule.

Right. What Metro is saying, in so many words, is that if you non-Verizon users have a problem with not being able to keep a phone call going underground, go tell the NTSB. Of course, its actually kind of hard to argue with WMATA’s prioritization here. After all, what good is cell service if the train on which you’re using it isn’t safe?