I Propose we Rename the Station 東部市場 during SafeTrack…

by Prince Of Petworth June 23, 2016 at 10:50 am 17 Comments

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Photo by PoPville flickr user Jim Havard

Jim tweets us this morning:

“Eastern Market this morning #safetrack”

eastern market

OP Anon

The trains in China arrive much more frequently than Metro here. I’d take the efficiency, newness, and widespread coverage of Beijing’s subway over WMATA any day of the week.
V

Traveling abroad, including to some countries that many Americans until recently thought were “backwards”, helps reveal how bad some of US infrastructure is. Airports being another example.
- Allison Street
  
  +100 The international terminal in Istanbul is one of the loveliest places I’ve passed a couple hours. And then I landed in JFK. And was embarrassed for America.
  - domrep
    
    At least you didn’t land in La Guardia.
    - Evan Tupac Grooter
      
      La Guardia is the worst. Why is there a gate D-3 in terminal B as well as a gate D-3 in terminal D?!
- Jill
  
  I was on Metro once when they had to stop service between Pentagon and L’Enfant, and some woman was wailing that it was like a third world country. And I couldn’t help thinking that I’ve been to third world countries with subways that are much better than ours (of course, they do have the advantage of being much newer).
  - justinbc
    
    The idea that America must always have the #1 best thing in every category is just silly. It’s a huge country with many big cities, most of which have infrastructure that varies in age greatly. Yes, there are places that have a better subway than a random city in the US, and there are plenty of places that don’t, or have no subway at all. Some of those places also have huge tradeoffs that Americans don’t have to deal with.
    - James W.
      
      where did anyone suggest the U.S. should have the “#1 best thing in every category”? the notion that the nation’s capital should have a reasonably functioning public transit system isn’t that big of an ask.
AE

Haha Dan’s on a roll ! Google translate says 東部市場 = Osaka Eastern Central Wholesale Market
Effie

Welp, looks like no one is getting to work on time…call your bosses!
CHGal

Since this is the start of the line further into the city, al these people are boarding completely empty trains. It probably flows pretty well.
Anonymous

As someone impacted by the closed stations, I’ve been using Eastern Market all week and they’ve generally been doing a pretty good job handling the madness. It does look like there was a longer wait for this train, but considering there are constantly full shuttle buses emptying out at this station, plus there are always quite a few tourists here along with commuters, you’re going to end up with a crowded platform. WMATA gets so much of what they do wrong, but this has been running much more smoothly than the clusterf*ck I presumed it would be. I do not need to use the shuttle buses, though, so for those folks it has certainly been a painful commute.
- danielle
  
  Same, I’ve been using Eastern Market all week (usually use Potomac Avenue). The past few days were fine but this morning it was pandemonium at Eastern Market!
anon

The problem as the pics show is that the EM station just isn’t suited for the crowds pouring in. There is not enough platform space, fare gates or escalators to handle the numbers coming in when those shuttle buses unload. I use this station every day and think Metro has done as well as possible, but it would certainly help if they could institute a little more crowd control before letting people onto the platform. And it would definitely help if the people coming off the shuttles didn’t act like they were escaping from a burning building.
- Jill
  
  +1 It’s probably one of the smaller stations in the system. I wonder if it would have been better to run some shuttles from L’Enfant Plaza as an alternative.
  FWIW I normally take Metro from EM but have been driving this week to take some of the burden off that station.
  - Anonymous
    
    I think they were trying to minimize the additional time involved for those using the buses, plus keeping the buses out of any downtown traffic especially with traffic already increased from those avoiding Metro. I’m not suggesting that this is all working perfectly or that I agree with all of the decisions they made, but am saying that given the decisions were a done deal, I think they’re now executing as well as could be expected with this type of huge disruption. The buses seems to be running frequently, people are getting to where they need to go, and once you get to Eastern Market, it’s really not running that much slower than usual. And I don’t know from where in Metro they pulled them, but the staff helping with directions and questions are actually friendly! It’s almost like Metro finally realized that customer service is a thing.
NW DC Guy

Just one data point, I realize, but I boarded a West/outbound Silver train at L’Enfant about 10 AM that was pretty much empty, which means those crowds were gone by then.

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