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Metro's 12th SafeTrack surge affects Blue Line
Metrorail's Blue Line, which serves as a main passageway for commuters traveling downtown, will face an 18-day SafeTrack surge beginning Feb. 11. The surge comes just days after a massive downtown closure that impacted riders on the weekend of the Super Bowl. SafeTrack surges are construction segments along the Metrorail that require lines to shut down for an extensive amount of time.
During the SafeTack surge, there will be no Blue Line service. Arlington Cemetery station will be closed, but Metro will be operating shuttles at the Pentagon and Rosslyn stations to compensate riders for the station closure at Arlington Cemetery. Metro officials encourage riders coming from Northern Virginia to take the Yellow-rush Line, which will be running all day, and transfer at L'Enfant Plaza station to take the Orange or
Silver Line if they intend to travel through downtown. Officials are also encouraging riders from Maryland to take the Silver line.
Because Arlington Cemetery is the only closed station during this surge, residents of them D.C. Metropolitan Area should not be “severely affected” said Lorraine Silva, Virginia’s vice chair of the Riders Advisory Council.
In 2016, Metro recorded an average of 1,500 riders entering the station daily, this being largely due to the fact that it services a popular tourist site.
Although the changes will also impact Arlington residents, officials are not expecting their travels to be as strenuous as tourists.
The Blue Line surge is the 12th surge of the 16 scheduled to be completed as a part of them SafeTrack plan. The plan, which is intended to improve safety and reliability within the Metro system, was implemented by General Manager Paul Wiedefeld last June.
The surge comes a week after a major Metrorail closure during Super Bowl weekend, which caused stations between Foggy Bottom and Eastern Market to close in order to allow Metro workers to install cell phone and radio communication technology. The installments will provide riders with better radio and cell reception. Workers also repaired ceiling tiles and railway tracks.
Although shuttles were made available to riders traveling through downtown D.C., the delays were noticeable among riders.
Many of the stations on the Blue Line as well as the Orange and Silver Lines encounter the most ridership throughout the Metro system. In 2016, L’Enfant Plaza, Farragut West, and Metro Center, which were major stops experiencing closures, encountered on average 20,000 to 25,000 riders daily. Rosslyn and Pentagon stations, which will be affected by the next Blue Line surge, saw more than 13,000 riders daily.
James Rice, a student at the University of the District of Columbia, primarily uses the Blue Line to get to his home in Northeast D.C. However, the system changes that occurred over the Super Bowl weekend made his commute difficult.
For Rice, who relies solely on Metro as a form of transportation, a trip home meant taking time away from other things. “I’m just going to have to wait (for the Metro shuttles) like everyone else,” Rice said. “There’s no uber-ing because that (cost) can add up.”
Metro officials were aware of the problems that the Super Bowl weekend closures could cause.
“It is never a good time to do that work,” Wiedefeld said. He acknowledged, however, that because the Super Bowl weekend draws one of the lower riderships averages of the season, with ridership down 3 percent for this weekend in the past four years, the decision to schedule the rail and tunnel work was intentional.
The 12th Blue Line surge won’t affect Rice since he can take the Silver and Orange Lines to get home, but he said that WMATA does “a bad job” of informing customers of closures. “They only let you know of a problem when you're actually on the train or in a station,” Rice said. “Who has time to be on their website to check updates every minute? They need to get it together.”
The SafeTrack plan was originally intended to take three years to complete, but the modified plan that was implemented will complete the necessary repairs in just one year. Wiedefeld said that if the Metro work went beyond three years, delays would have worsened.
“We didn't want to put the work off because the tires and the railings were deteriorating,” he said. “The work needed to be done as quickly as possible.”
Wiedefeld also said he adopted a new way of handling unexpected mechanical problems in the Metrorail system that are not included in the SafeTrack plan. “We are doing work when we find things now,” he said. “We aren't waiting years in the future to do it.”
Disabled riders say Pentagon City pedestrian tunnel does not comply with law
Disabled riders of D.C. Metro expressed their opposition to the opening of a pedestrian tunnel at Pentagon City station on Thursday.
The board approved to negotiate and execute an agreement with Arlington County to open the tunnel, which was first constructed in 1984 but has undergone rehabilitation beginning in 2012 to meet WMATA’s operational standards. The tunnel would prevent pedestrians from crossing 12th Street by connecting its northeast corner to the Metro station.
In the agreement, Arlington County offered to take full ownership of the tunnel which would rid of any pressure on Metro to allocate funds towards the project.
During the board meeting, six disabled Metro riders opposed the agreement, arguing that the lack of elevators would not provide an atmosphere of equality.
Dorris Ray, a member of Metro's Accessibility Advisory Committee, said Metro is “forcing people with disabilities to cross a very large street” by not adding more elevators.
Pentagon City has one elevator on the opposite side of the tunnel. Arlington county officials notified the Metro Board that the pedestrian tunnel is within the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which forbids “discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, and public accommodation” (Department of Labor).
Laura Halvorson, a member of D.C. Metro ADAPT, an organization geared toward equality for disabled riders, said if Metro does not negotiate an agreement with Arlington County that includes the addition of more elevators, the organization will protest.
Disabled riders also opposed the proposed raised fares and the slashing of MetroAccess operations, which was proposed by General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld to close the $290 million budget gap. Metro planned to raise the MetroAccess fare by 10 cents during peak hours and 25 cents during off-peak hours like other comparable rates. They also planned to cut 14 bus routes which would affect MetroAccess riders.
“Our issue is also with the budget,” Halvorson said. “They want to raise fares for MetroAccess, and it’s already pretty costly because a lot of us are on fixed incomes.”
Elizabeth Hideman, another member of D.C. Metro ADAPT, said that slashing bus routes would make it “difficult to find transportation from work, attend night classes, and to have any social life at all.”
Halvorson said that replacing Metro with Uber would be less convenient because they are “discriminatory toward disabled people.”
Maryland and Virginia do not have Uber cars that are wheelchair accessible, according to Uber. There are also few in the D.C. area, said Halvorson. “I ordered one and a regular van pulled up with no wheelchair lift on it,” she said. “That’s not an option. This is going to affect our equal opportunity to do everything.”
Jack Evans, Chairman of the Metro Board, agreed to meet with DC Metro ADAPT to discuss issues regarding accessibility and affordability in further detail.
Metro added new limited-stop bus route
Metro has added a new limited-stop bus route to alleviate congestion in the growing Rhode Island Avenue corridor on Monday.
The route will travel west from Eastern Avenue toward Franklin Square every 15 to 20 minutes. The bus will run from 6 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. during the weekdays, making 15 stops westbound and 13 stops eastbound.
The D.C. council allocated $1.2 million toward the project as a part of its 2017 fiscal year budget. The G9 is expected to encounter a thousand riders daily and will primarily serve residents living in the Bloomingdale, Edgewood, Brentwood, Brookland, Woodridge and Langdon Park communities.
In the opening ceremony at the Woodbridge Library Plaza, Metro Chairman Jack Evans acknowledged the current financial and infrastructural state of the transit system, calling it a “resurging Metro.”
“A lot of our D.C. residents rely on the buses to get to places,” said Evans who represents Ward 2. “I am very pleased to say that not only is the District not losing any local bus routes, but we’re actually adding bus service.”
The pre-existing G8, 83, and 86 bus routes as well as the Rhode Island Avenue Metro service the corridor, but many community members complained that these routes were becoming inconvenient for multiple reasons.
According to Kyle Todd, executive director of the Rhode Island Avenue NE Main Street, “There was not a direct pathway into downtown without transferring. The area was also experiencing a lot of growth which led to overcrowding on buses.”
The G8 bus route travels through Franklin Square while the Metro carries riders through downtown D.C. by way of Metro Center and Farragut North, but these options do not service riders who live further down Rhode Island Avenue near Mount Ranier.
The 83 and 86 bus routes also do not reach downtown D.C., showing a service gap between the 4th Avenue intersection of Rhode Island Avenue and the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station. The G9 route offers a solution, by stretching from Mount Ranier to downtown D.C.
The implementation of the MetroExtra G9 was supported by the D.C. Council after a study was conducted by Metro Priority Corridor Network (PCN) which was completed in April 2014.
The study showed that residents near the Rhode Island Avenue corridor prioritized having a continuous bus route along Rhode Island Avenue into downtown D.C. Six-hundred passengers who take the 83 or 86 buses are required to transfer along the north and south-bound routes. Fifty-three percent of passengers who take those routes also use the College Park Metro Station at some point in their travels.
Douglas Stallworth, the planning director of MetroExtra G9, said he wanted to extend the route to The University ofMaryland (UMD) but could not get enough support from the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT).
“I’m encouraging (MDOT) to do that because its developing out there,” Stallworth said, referring to the increasing amount of food vendors in Riverdale Park and the new art district in Hyattsville. Both towns are located within the corridor.
“We had all of those stops listed in the potential extension. It would make sense to me considering you also have a college right there,” said Stallworth.
Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said the decision to extend the G9 route to UMD is up to the D.C. council.
“They’re the ones who are funding it,” Wiedefeld said. “Any decision to make it seven-days a week or extend it is up to them.”
Wiedefeld also said if the the G9 route shows success in its ability to alleviate congestion, that would help the D.C. Council determine whether to extend the route.