Photo by pnzr242.

WMATA’s board of directors held finance and customer service committee hearings this morning — and, as has been their custom, the board had some interesting things to announce during the few hours they met.

What Happened With L’Enfant Plaza’s Escalator on Saturday?: The board addressed the incident at L’Enfant Plaza last Saturday, in which sixteen people were hurt, including one seriously, when an escalator sped up unexpectedly and caused a human crush. The preliminary reports indicate that the escalator’s brakes malfunctioned after a station manager reversed its direction to facilitate movement among a large crowd of rallygoers. The added weight on the escalator caused it to speed up, but its brakes didn’t fire properly, and everyone was dumped at the bottom. It was later determined that two of the escalator’s three motors had faulty brakes — the last rehabilitation of the escalator in question was in 2004, and it had last been inspected in September.

Capital Improvement Plan: The board unveiled its five-year plan for capital improvement. Many details of the $1.18 billion plan have been known for quite some time — for example, the bulk of the cost ($850 million) is the National Transportation Safety Board-recommended replacement of outdated Series 1000 cars — but there were a couple of other interesting details to note, like plans to install “event recorders” on cars and the prioritization of repairs on the Red and Blue Lines.