
Remember that time when hundreds of brand-new speakers had to be ripped out in all five of the brand-new Silver Line stations because they didn’t meet the fire code? Turns out that they maybe should have looked at the handrails while they were at it.
Lighted handrails at two different stations caught fire earlier this month, NBC News4 reported. One fire occurred at the Greensboro station on March 8, and the second one happened the next day at Tysons Corner. No one was injured in either incident. And apparently this wasn’t even the first time this has happened; there was a previous fire involving the handrails during the construction phase.
Metro has deactivated the handrails at all five of the new Silver Line stations and is installing temporary lighting in the meantime, the transit agency said in a statement.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), which oversaw construction of the first phase of the $5.6 billion project, will be responsible for fixing the problem. “This is a warranty issue and we have been working with WMATA and Dulles Transit Partners, the contractor for Phase 1, to ensure a permanent solution,” MWAA said in a statement.
Rachel Sadon