DC Metrorail ShutDown
Tue Mar 15 22:40:20 EDT 2016
Metro General Manager/CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld, with support from the Authority's Board of Directors, today announced the full closure of the Metrorail system on Wednesday, March 16, for emergency inspections of the system's third-rail power cables following an early morning tunnel fire yesterday.
The inspections of approximately 600 "jumper cables" will occur along all tunnel segments on the Metrorail system. At the conclusion of the inspection process, there may be a need for additional rail service outages. Any further service impacts will be announced to the public as soon as they are known.
"While the risk to the public is very low, I cannot rule out a potential life safety issue here, and that is why we must take this action immediately," Wiedefeld said. "When I say safety is our highest priority, I mean it. That sometimes means making tough, unpopular decisions, and this is one of those times. I fully recognize the hardship this will cause."
The Metrorail system will close at its normal time tonight (midnight) and remain closed until 5 a.m. Thursday. All six Metrorail lines and all 91 stations will be closed on Wednesday.
The unprecedented action follows an early morning electrical fire involving a cable in the tunnel outside McPherson Square Station yesterday. There were no injuries; however, service was disrupted along the Blue, Orange and Silver lines throughout the day.
"The investigation into yesterday's cable fire at McPherson Square is ongoing," Wiedefeld said. "As a preliminary matter, the conditions appear disturbingly similar to those in the L'Enfant incident of a year ago, and our focus is squarely on mitigating any risk of a fire elsewhere on the system."
Metrobus and MetroAccess service will continue to operate on a regular schedule. Parking will be free in all Metro-owned lots and garages for customers who wish to take bus or carpool.
Alternate service options throughout the region will be extremely limited, and severe crowding is expected on buses. The public is advised to make alternate travel arrangements as early as possible.
The buses will still be running, but Google Maps "could not calculate transit directions" when I tried to show this feature to coworkers. The buses run everyplace the subway does, so it should be possible for anybody who uses Metrorail to take a bus instead. It will probably take longer, and it will probably be crowded. (I have occasionally taken rail at normal commute times, and those trains have a lot of people in them. They're not all going to fit in the available buses - should they choose that route.) It will probably also be cheaper.
According to Metro's Trip Planner, if I were going from home to the office now, I'd have a 15-minute wait for the next bus, and the trip would take 42 minutes bus+rail for $4.45, or 82 minutes bus only for $1.75. That's a peak rail fare; it's been $3.60 for my typical (off-peak) commutes. If you think that 82 minutes on the bus sounds bad (It is bad, since it's under 10 miles (16km) on the bike.), bus+rail can take that long too when the connections are bad. I've had 45-minute waits for a bus. (And given the weather is probably too bad for cycling that if I'm taking Metro, those waits for transfers are not a happy time.)
Official word just came (sent 17:38, arrived 17:39): the office is open tomorrow but telework is permitted for all: HQ Operating Status for Wednesday, March 16, 2016
OPEN with Option for Unscheduled Leave and/or Telework
[Agency] Headquarters in Washington, D.C. will be OPEN on Wednesday, March 16, 2016.
Due to the scheduled closure of the Metrorail system, HQ employees have the option for unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework.
This is more like the Pope's visit than a snow day. Things are open, but traffic is expected to be hellacious. (The Metro was open for the Pope's visit, but parts of it were serverely congested. Many roads were closed - which did affect my bike route.)
As a cycle commuter, I don't expect to be badly affected by this. Streets may be more congested, but that doesn't slow down bikes as much as cars. One coworker jokes that the bike trails are going to be crowded, but I don't think that will be the case. For one thing, my commute is off peak, and there just aren't many people going to/from work when I am - regardless of their mode. And I don't think that many people are ready to switch to biking to work on such short notice if they haven't done it before. The weather forecast has a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms between 11:00 and 20:00. Maybe our bike parking will be full. (There's more on the lower garage levels.) Quite likely the car parking will be full. (Are the lower 2/5 of the parking garage still closed off, unused? (How much does it cost for electricity to light those unused garage levels 24/7?)) Maybe the lockers will be full.
Depending on what they find tomorrow, parts of the system might be closed on Thursday, too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/2016/03/15/8e0b2be4-eae8-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html
This is the first non-weather-related shutdown of the rail system.
Wiedefeld said cables throughout the system were inspected last year and 125 were replaced. The cable that burned Monday was inspected as part of that earlier review and passed.
Website comments:Tenmile1 @ 7:35 PM EDT
Perhaps this will prove that teleworking is necessary in the 21st century when Americans can no longer be expected to be able to commute to work any more.
Dylan Wentworth @ 6:45 PM EDT [Edited]
Sorry but we don't prioritize math and science here in this country. We priortize football and competitive obesity. We'd have to import those scary dark skinned people from other countries to be the experts.
raywilliams @ 6:42 PM EDT
Imagine if the $23 billion that Ted Cruz cost the federal government with his Tea Party government shut-down stunt had been simply given to Metro to upgrade the system.
But ... I realize Cruz would not have received any political points for doing something constructive rather than destructive.
Talk about stepping up!Capital Bikeshare to Offer Free 24-hour Memberships March 16 for Metrorail Closure
Capital Bikeshare will offer free 24-hour memberships at all 370 stations on Wednesday March 16, beginning at 12 AM to better serve commuters looking for transportation during the Metrorail closure. Usage fees will still apply to all trips over 30 minutes.
And this on a local biking blog:
http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?10098-Expect-crowded-trails-tomorrow&p=136795#post136795
03:15 PM #1 Expect crowded trails tomorrow. Emergency systemwide shutdown on metro. - lordofthemark
03:25 PM #2 Smugness factor to 11. I will be insufferable in the office tomorrow. Or maybe the only one in the office tomorrow. - Brendan von Buckingham
04:09 PM #7 Be sure to act like you didn't know about the shutdown. "Oh, was there a lot of extra traffic today? What happened?" - ShawnoftheDread
03:43 PM #4 Holy ______-ing expletive. if this actually occurs, it may be Newbie City on the trails tomorrow. - MFC
03:46 PM #5 BTWD, minus the swag. - lordofthemark
07:53 PM #12 Everyone wear a BTWD t-shirt tomorrow!!!!! - rcannon100
10:42 PM #14 I have to agree that there may not be too many new bike commuters tomorrow. Unless people have short commutes, say within 1 or 2 miles, or are already an occasional bike commuters, they aren't likely to take up bike commuting on such short notice. They may not know about trails or (relatively) bike-friendly roads and routes to work. At least with Bike to Work Day, there is a long lead-up to the event, with people leading newbie groups and more time to prepare mentally for the idea of bike commuting. I think back to 2008 before I started biking as an adult. There is a significant mental barrier to cross for many non-cyclists. It had never occurred to me that people actually biked from Arlington to DC. I wasn't opposed to the idea back then. It simply never crossed my mind. - PotomacCyclist
BTWD = Bike-to-Work Day - lots of people on bikes who haven't commuted before; possibly have never done more than a neighborhood jaunt before. SWAG may include water bottles, reflective things, blinkers, T-SHIRTS, maps, snack bars, etc.
I already wear BtWD T-shirts much of the time.
My office has 2 cyclists. The other lives much farther out than I do (Ashburn, VA).
People who will be least affected by the rail shutdown:People who walk to work.
People who bike to work.
People who take Metrorail are screwed. People who take Metrobus will see a lot more people wanting to take the bus. People who drive will see terrible traffic (unless a lot of people telework, like for the Pope's visit). People who take cabs will see a lot more demand competing for the same supply; Uber/Lyft will have surge pricing.
And Washington, DC made the Copenhagenize Design Co. blog:
Bicycle Infrastructure Fail(s).
I looked at the photo and thought "We've got a street like that." Then I thought "That looks like The Capitol (in its current scaffolding) at the end of the street. And that looks like a DC Metro bus." And I read a bit, and it is our stupid street. Pennsylvania Avenue. I don't ride that part of Penna Ave. Bike lanes that need to be explained are a poor design. You see all those raised blocks down both sides? Those were added because they couldn't keep people from making U-turns across the bike lanes; not with signs, not with tickets.
Thursday 18:00
Google Maps transit routing for DC is still not working: "Sorry, we could not calculate transit directions from...." The Metro is running normally today (26 bad jumper cables found, 3 "show stoppers"), so that shouldn't be the problem. Maybe Google Maps was broken before the service outage was announced? I haven't had any reason to check it recently.
The cable that caught fire Monday after passing a previous inspection might not have been a bad inspection; it might have degraded after the inspection. That raises more questions about how/why these things are failing. Not my job. But I do take Metro occasionally, and someone died from a similar fire/smoke incident in Jan 2015.
Friday 19:44
When you request vacation, do you list just the workdays, or do you include possible adjoining weekend days? I've always just stated the workdays, but last year someone was scheduling tasks for me on the preceding weekend! Clearly, we don't all make the same assumptions. I won't be leaving that open for interpretation in the future. (My 2-weeks away for Pennsic will include 3 weekends.)
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/803943.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Metro General Manager/CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld, with support from the Authority's Board of Directors, today announced the full closure of the Metrorail system on Wednesday, March 16, for emergency inspections of the system's third-rail power cables following an early morning tunnel fire yesterday.
The inspections of approximately 600 "jumper cables" will occur along all tunnel segments on the Metrorail system. At the conclusion of the inspection process, there may be a need for additional rail service outages. Any further service impacts will be announced to the public as soon as they are known.
"While the risk to the public is very low, I cannot rule out a potential life safety issue here, and that is why we must take this action immediately," Wiedefeld said. "When I say safety is our highest priority, I mean it. That sometimes means making tough, unpopular decisions, and this is one of those times. I fully recognize the hardship this will cause."
The Metrorail system will close at its normal time tonight (midnight) and remain closed until 5 a.m. Thursday. All six Metrorail lines and all 91 stations will be closed on Wednesday.
The unprecedented action follows an early morning electrical fire involving a cable in the tunnel outside McPherson Square Station yesterday. There were no injuries; however, service was disrupted along the Blue, Orange and Silver lines throughout the day.
"The investigation into yesterday's cable fire at McPherson Square is ongoing," Wiedefeld said. "As a preliminary matter, the conditions appear disturbingly similar to those in the L'Enfant incident of a year ago, and our focus is squarely on mitigating any risk of a fire elsewhere on the system."
Metrobus and MetroAccess service will continue to operate on a regular schedule. Parking will be free in all Metro-owned lots and garages for customers who wish to take bus or carpool.
Alternate service options throughout the region will be extremely limited, and severe crowding is expected on buses. The public is advised to make alternate travel arrangements as early as possible.
The buses will still be running, but Google Maps "could not calculate transit directions" when I tried to show this feature to coworkers. The buses run everyplace the subway does, so it should be possible for anybody who uses Metrorail to take a bus instead. It will probably take longer, and it will probably be crowded. (I have occasionally taken rail at normal commute times, and those trains have a lot of people in them. They're not all going to fit in the available buses - should they choose that route.) It will probably also be cheaper.
According to Metro's Trip Planner, if I were going from home to the office now, I'd have a 15-minute wait for the next bus, and the trip would take 42 minutes bus+rail for $4.45, or 82 minutes bus only for $1.75. That's a peak rail fare; it's been $3.60 for my typical (off-peak) commutes. If you think that 82 minutes on the bus sounds bad (It is bad, since it's under 10 miles (16km) on the bike.), bus+rail can take that long too when the connections are bad. I've had 45-minute waits for a bus. (And given the weather is probably too bad for cycling that if I'm taking Metro, those waits for transfers are not a happy time.)
Official word just came (sent 17:38, arrived 17:39): the office is open tomorrow but telework is permitted for all: HQ Operating Status for Wednesday, March 16, 2016
OPEN with Option for Unscheduled Leave and/or Telework
[Agency] Headquarters in Washington, D.C. will be OPEN on Wednesday, March 16, 2016.
Due to the scheduled closure of the Metrorail system, HQ employees have the option for unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework.
This is more like the Pope's visit than a snow day. Things are open, but traffic is expected to be hellacious. (The Metro was open for the Pope's visit, but parts of it were serverely congested. Many roads were closed - which did affect my bike route.)
As a cycle commuter, I don't expect to be badly affected by this. Streets may be more congested, but that doesn't slow down bikes as much as cars. One coworker jokes that the bike trails are going to be crowded, but I don't think that will be the case. For one thing, my commute is off peak, and there just aren't many people going to/from work when I am - regardless of their mode. And I don't think that many people are ready to switch to biking to work on such short notice if they haven't done it before. The weather forecast has a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms between 11:00 and 20:00. Maybe our bike parking will be full. (There's more on the lower garage levels.) Quite likely the car parking will be full. (Are the lower 2/5 of the parking garage still closed off, unused? (How much does it cost for electricity to light those unused garage levels 24/7?)) Maybe the lockers will be full.
Depending on what they find tomorrow, parts of the system might be closed on Thursday, too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/2016/03/15/8e0b2be4-eae8-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html
This is the first non-weather-related shutdown of the rail system.
Wiedefeld said cables throughout the system were inspected last year and 125 were replaced. The cable that burned Monday was inspected as part of that earlier review and passed.
Website comments:Tenmile1 @ 7:35 PM EDT
Perhaps this will prove that teleworking is necessary in the 21st century when Americans can no longer be expected to be able to commute to work any more.
Dylan Wentworth @ 6:45 PM EDT [Edited]
Sorry but we don't prioritize math and science here in this country. We priortize football and competitive obesity. We'd have to import those scary dark skinned people from other countries to be the experts.
raywilliams @ 6:42 PM EDT
Imagine if the $23 billion that Ted Cruz cost the federal government with his Tea Party government shut-down stunt had been simply given to Metro to upgrade the system.
But ... I realize Cruz would not have received any political points for doing something constructive rather than destructive.
Talk about stepping up!Capital Bikeshare to Offer Free 24-hour Memberships March 16 for Metrorail Closure
Capital Bikeshare will offer free 24-hour memberships at all 370 stations on Wednesday March 16, beginning at 12 AM to better serve commuters looking for transportation during the Metrorail closure. Usage fees will still apply to all trips over 30 minutes.
And this on a local biking blog:
http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?10098-Expect-crowded-trails-tomorrow&p=136795#post136795
03:15 PM #1 Expect crowded trails tomorrow. Emergency systemwide shutdown on metro. - lordofthemark
03:25 PM #2 Smugness factor to 11. I will be insufferable in the office tomorrow. Or maybe the only one in the office tomorrow. - Brendan von Buckingham
04:09 PM #7 Be sure to act like you didn't know about the shutdown. "Oh, was there a lot of extra traffic today? What happened?" - ShawnoftheDread
03:43 PM #4 Holy ______-ing expletive. if this actually occurs, it may be Newbie City on the trails tomorrow. - MFC
03:46 PM #5 BTWD, minus the swag. - lordofthemark
07:53 PM #12 Everyone wear a BTWD t-shirt tomorrow!!!!! - rcannon100
10:42 PM #14 I have to agree that there may not be too many new bike commuters tomorrow. Unless people have short commutes, say within 1 or 2 miles, or are already an occasional bike commuters, they aren't likely to take up bike commuting on such short notice. They may not know about trails or (relatively) bike-friendly roads and routes to work. At least with Bike to Work Day, there is a long lead-up to the event, with people leading newbie groups and more time to prepare mentally for the idea of bike commuting. I think back to 2008 before I started biking as an adult. There is a significant mental barrier to cross for many non-cyclists. It had never occurred to me that people actually biked from Arlington to DC. I wasn't opposed to the idea back then. It simply never crossed my mind. - PotomacCyclist
BTWD = Bike-to-Work Day - lots of people on bikes who haven't commuted before; possibly have never done more than a neighborhood jaunt before. SWAG may include water bottles, reflective things, blinkers, T-SHIRTS, maps, snack bars, etc.
I already wear BtWD T-shirts much of the time.
My office has 2 cyclists. The other lives much farther out than I do (Ashburn, VA).
People who will be least affected by the rail shutdown:People who walk to work.
People who bike to work.
People who take Metrorail are screwed. People who take Metrobus will see a lot more people wanting to take the bus. People who drive will see terrible traffic (unless a lot of people telework, like for the Pope's visit). People who take cabs will see a lot more demand competing for the same supply; Uber/Lyft will have surge pricing.
And Washington, DC made the Copenhagenize Design Co. blog:
Bicycle Infrastructure Fail(s).
I looked at the photo and thought "We've got a street like that." Then I thought "That looks like The Capitol (in its current scaffolding) at the end of the street. And that looks like a DC Metro bus." And I read a bit, and it is our stupid street. Pennsylvania Avenue. I don't ride that part of Penna Ave. Bike lanes that need to be explained are a poor design. You see all those raised blocks down both sides? Those were added because they couldn't keep people from making U-turns across the bike lanes; not with signs, not with tickets.
Thursday 18:00
Google Maps transit routing for DC is still not working: "Sorry, we could not calculate transit directions from...." The Metro is running normally today (26 bad jumper cables found, 3 "show stoppers"), so that shouldn't be the problem. Maybe Google Maps was broken before the service outage was announced? I haven't had any reason to check it recently.
The cable that caught fire Monday after passing a previous inspection might not have been a bad inspection; it might have degraded after the inspection. That raises more questions about how/why these things are failing. Not my job. But I do take Metro occasionally, and someone died from a similar fire/smoke incident in Jan 2015.
Friday 19:44
When you request vacation, do you list just the workdays, or do you include possible adjoining weekend days? I've always just stated the workdays, but last year someone was scheduling tasks for me on the preceding weekend! Clearly, we don't all make the same assumptions. I won't be leaving that open for interpretation in the future. (My 2-weeks away for Pennsic will include 3 weekends.)
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/803943.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]