Photo by Marcellina.

Are you ready to be grossed out? I mean, really ready? Good, because this report by Kytja Weir will certainly do the trick. Turns out that Metro employees aren’t only using pocket tracks to relieve themselves during their shifts — some have even taken to urinating and defecating inside trains and buses.

One operator said she twice found feces under piles of newspapers inside the cab of the trains assigned to her. A bus driver said he found bottles of urine in the bus trash can. One even admitted to heeding the call of nature on the buses and trains.

“I have. Oh, everybody has. I even soiled my clothes once,” one longtime operator told
The Washington Examiner. “That’s why the trains smell like urine near where the operators are.”

Yeah, that’s downright filthy. Later in the report, one bus operator told Weir that she “used to go into a cup or bag at the back of her bus when a bathroom stop wasn’t an option” — though that kind of behavior has been slightly curbed since WMATA installed cameras on its buses.

According to the transit workers’ union, the reason for the peeing and pooping all over Metro’s property is that operators don’t have sufficient time to use the bathroom during their breaks, even when there is a bathroom nearby. A recent report by Metro’s inspector general made the recommendation that WMATA examine whether their current policies include enough time for workers to use the bathroom after discovering that some employees were popping into side tracks to urinate.

The employees and union attempts to justify turning Metro buses and trains into toilets by stating that their breaks are often stymied by vehicular traffic, slower speeds due to manual operation of Metro trains and the fact that not every station has easily accessible bathrooms. And we can certainly understand that stopping a bus or train to use the facilities is hardly an optimal situation for anyone. But there’s really no excuse for Metro workers to be doing this — and based on quotes like the one below, Metro’s peeing problem has to do more with the presence of a culture of acceptance, rather than logistical issues:

One former track worker said they try to be careful. “We try to be very conscious of health issues, if possible,” he said. “We don’t just pee anywhere.” Instead, he said, track workers try to go near the drains in the tunnels.

Well, as long as they’re trying to being courteous, I suppose that’s all we can really ask for.