Questions about Metrorail’s employee safety record are abounding in the wake of an incident Tuesday in which an engineer was struck by a moving train at a maintenance yard in Shady Grove.

A happy Friday to you, Washington. Hopefully you all made it in to work on time despite Metro having reduced the speed of their rail cars in several areas this morning. Speed restrictions were in place until 8:10 a.m. along portions of the Orange line in Maryland and Virginia, the Red line from Union Station to Silver Spring and from Shady Grove to Grosvenor, and the Green line from Branch Avenue to Congress Heights…

Friday has arrived at last, Washington. Despite the federal holiday on Monday, it’s been a rather long week for many of us – though of course, we couldn’t hold a candle to the week that D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi has had. The Post writes about yesterday’s lengthy D.C. Council hearing into the tax office scandal, which lasted until 9 p.m. and where it was apparently revealed late in the evening that authorities are investigating the…

Good morning, Washington. Recent increases in gun-related crime in the city seems to be today’s main topic of news, just as the Supreme Court may announce today whether it intends to take another look at D.C.’s handgun ban. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has scheduled a press conference this morning to address the District’s position on its gun safety law, but in the meantime the Washington Post is questioning the law’s effectiveness and just last…

Nobody enjoys having to muscle through a dense crowd of people on the metro platform. Especially on those days when everyone is so eager to get on the train that they don’t even wait for anyone to get off before surging onboard. Times like that, we wish we had some magical power to transport past the crowd, but then again if we could do that, we wouldn’t be taking metro to begin with, now would…

Last May we pointed to a Post article detailing the troubles WMATA was having with Metro’s ubiquitous platform lighting. According to the paper, the light-bulbs — over 25,000 throughout the whole system — lasted but three months at a time, requiring late night replacing that could involve as many as 13 employees working seven three-hour shifts to cover a large station. At the time, we asked if the expense was really worth it. Given all…

What’s more fun than scraping snow off of a windshield or sidewalk? Scraping snow covered by a layer of ice! Now we remember the exciting potpourri of precipitation that makes a mid-Atlantic winter what it is. We hope your morning commute wasn’t too much of a hassle. We also hope that many of you used the weekend to submit some more fantastic photos for DCist Exposed! With the deadline now passed, we can hardly wait…

As we look back over the wreckage of another spent year this week, we take a moment to honor the kinds of quotes that are the bread and butter of this column. Namely, the odd things seen and heard on mass transit, and the reliable adorability of lost and/or confused tourists. But remember, Karma always comes back around, so every time you have a chuckle at the expense of an exasperated commuter or weary…

The Back of People’s Heads: It invariably happens to us all. For one reason or another, we get stuck on a Red Line train from Metro Center to Shady Grove with nothing to read, nothing to distract our attention from staring out into the darkened tunnels or straight ahead at the back of the person’s head seated in front of us. So we stare. We start judging the health of their hair, the quality of…

Today will be positively depressing – cloudy with patchy drizzle with highs in the low 60s. What do you have planned for the weekend? Dropping by the New Pornographers (or the Foo Fighters)? Stopping by the D.C. Flickr group’s Georgetown show? We’ll have our full picks later today. Preparations for ‘Millions More’: Area officials are preparing for crowds for this weekend’s Millions More Movement, an anniversary commemoration of the Million Man March. A number of…