Comments on: This Weekend’s Metro Track Work

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 16:00:22 +0000

plus it’s beyond stupid to make the comparison to nyc’s system.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:46:10 +0000

Why, oh why, couldn’t they have predicted the future?

Yes, they should have built in the extra capacity you speak of. But it would have been exceptionally expensive to do at a time when transportation expansion was very focused on freeways and rights of way for automobiles. Times were different. “Short-sighted fools” is more than a little harsh and inaccurate.

By: thebear

thebear — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 15:15:33 +0000

All one need do is read the planning documents, as I did. One can obtain them from WMATA.

By: victoria

victoria — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:37:24 +0000

Sources – facts – beyond your say-so would be very helpful.

By: thebear

thebear — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:01:54 +0000

I am exceptionally familiar with rapid transit history in the US. Metro’s planners deliberately rejected the notion of building-in extra capacity, even route interchanges to allow greater flexibility. They were convinced that the ONLY growth in the region would be in the outlying suburbs, and that usage pattern would always be between downtown and the burbs, weekdays, with limited weekend service to accommodate tourists. They declined to put in a route to Dulles because there wasn’t a sufficient level of travel out of there; nor was any thought given to the Route 7 corridor turning into what it is today. The master plan for the region had the District itself remaining relatively static as “the company town” and suggestions that DC would ever be anything but were not only dismissed, they were ridiculed.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 23:46:58 +0000

do you not understand the differences?
i’ll start you in the right direction
at the time of the metro, nyc was heading to become the largest city in the world, in the emerging significance of a growing urban infatuation and boom,and had cheap cheap cheap labor.
at the time of the metro construction, the us was in a financially catastrophic time, DC was a desperate, dying, shrinking city at the end of the 20th centuries interests in cities and only concerned with commuters with no idea that the city would ever increase in size.

dc’s metro was an attempt at resuscitation.
nyc was because of massive growth.

by the time dc’s metro was built, nyc’s subways were disgusting violently dangerous shitholes.

By: thebear

thebear — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:54:14 +0000

Goes to show what a bunch of short-sighted fools designed Metro. When the New York subway was built, they put in 3 and 4 tracks even though there was nothing but farmland some of the places the lines went through. After seeing that real-world example, there is no excuse for not having done the same here. Oh, well.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:36:21 +0000

it’s not really possible for it to ever end.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 21:50:47 +0000

Will it ever end?

By: as the rain

as the rain — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 20:31:08 +0000

Why the f*($ does the yellow line stop at Mt. Vernon Square every time there’s track work (which is every weekend these days)?