metro

Getting Gooder: “Metrorail ridership grew by 20,000 trips per weekday in 2019”

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user DCbmyers

Ed. Note: Red Line riders please be aware that Silver Spring, Forest Glen, Wheaton and Glenmont stations will be closed this weekend for installation of cable/communication equipment.

From WMATA:

“Metrorail’s ridership growth trend can now be expressed in years, with the system posting a 4-percent increase in passenger trips for the 2019 calendar year, ending a downward trend that lasted most of the prior decade. Total rail ridership was 182 million trips, compared to 175 million in 2018, a net increase of seven million trips, reflecting increasing customer confidence in Metro’s reliability and on-time performance.

Ridership increased across all days of the week, including a 3.3 percent increase in weekday travel–the equivalent of 20,000 additional trips per commuting day. Metrorail’s average weekday ridership now stands at 626,000.

Notably, weekends accounted for a quarter of overall rail ridership growth, with average Saturday ridership increasing 9.4 percent to 264,000 trips, and average Sunday ridership increasing 6.5 percent to 168,000 trips. (more…)

“Metro internal review of Dec 10 Red Line incident finds safety hazard resulted from human error, insufficient training”

By Prince Of Petworth

From WMATA:

“Metro’s post-incident review of the December 10 Red Line disruption has identified two violations of safety policies or procedures–prompting immediate corrective action–as well as specific areas where additional training and supervisory oversight is required.

The review, led by Metro Chief Safety Officer Theresa Impastato, found that the ROCC controller did not follow safety procedures upon receiving a report of “light sparks” in the tunnel outside Tenleytown Station. While the train operator did not explicitly report “smoke” or “fire,” the ROCC controller appropriately recognized a potential hazard and requested that the following train (Train #130) conduct a track inspection but failed to instruct Train 130 to offload its passengers before beginning the inspection. The controller’s actions violated Metro’s safety rules and procedures for smoke/fire incidents, and immediate corrective action is underway. (more…)

Meanwhile on the Red Line this Morning

By Prince Of Petworth

Thanks to Beth for sending just before 8:30am:

“Inbound track right now…light gray seems to be a short section of new track. My train was not serving Tenleytown.”

From WMATA: “Red Line service update for single tracking outside Friendship Heights:

* Trains every 12 min between Shady Grove & Glenmont
* Additional trains every 6 min between Glenmont & Farragut North

Crews on scene, working to address a track problem”

“Red Line Alert: Some trains are operating between Glenmont and Farragut North due to a track problem at Friendship Heights.”

Behold – The Oldest and Coolest Commemorative SmarTrip Cards

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by Mike

A simple twitter query and wondering when my Nats World Series card would arrive have bloomed the greatest responses. Let’s look back on the greatest commemorative SmarTrip cards.


Photo by afawzy

Ed. Note: If you have some more classics – please email to [email protected] and I’ll add them to this list. Thanks! And thanks to all who dug them out for us.

Check out so many more awesome ones: (more…)

Tonight in Metro Messes – Farragut West

By Prince Of Petworth

A reader reports at 5:35pm: “Trains single tracking at Farragut West – was ushered off train by lots of MPD apparently for suspicious package investigation FYI!”

From WMATA: “Orange/Silver/Blue Line Delay: Trains are single tracking btwn Farragut West & Foggy Bottom due to a police investigation at Farragut West. Delays in both directions.”

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