Photo by mofo.

Shortly after the Metrorail crash near Fort Totten that killed nine people on June 22, 2009, WMATA decided to switch its trains to manual mode, which would give its operators more control to stop and control the speed of trains. Almost two years later though, the agency’s hardly close to returning to automatic operation.

The Examiner reports that WMATA is still “several years” away from going back to the way trains were driven before the deadliest crash in Metro history:

[WMATA deputy general manager] Dave Kubicek told The Washington Examiner that manual operations will continue for a number of years because the agency still needs to swap out “well over half” of the safety modules of the type that faltered in the 2009 train crash.

The only way to speed up the work, and thus resume automatic service sooner, would be for Metro’s work crews to get more access the tracks, he said.

That either means more shutdowns like those that occurred this past Memorial Day weekend at four Orange/Blue Line stations or fewer hours of service, an unpleasant trade-off for riders.

Customers often complain about manual mode, noting that it causes a more jerky ride — those who suffer from motion sickness are usually among the loudest critics of the non-automatic operations. But it’s tough to argue with safety, and given the timetable, the added stops and starts are probably just something that Metro riders are just going to have to get used to.