WMATA's "Orange Crush"
The Washington Post has a very informative article about the highly congested Orange Line segment that connects Fairfax and Arlington counties in Virginia with downtown Washington. The Potomac River tunnel that connects Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom is only two tracks wide, yet it carries both Blue and Orange Line trains. Any Orange Line rider knows the result: unbearably packed trains. The situation will only get worse as Arlington continues its years-long project of urban densification in the Rosslyn - Ballston corridor.
Metro management has seemed particularly clueless about this problem, for two reasons that I can think of offhand. First, Metro has been a big promoter of a new rail line to Dulles Airport--a project that would certainly add many Orange Line riders from Northern Virginia. Yet Metro has not been particularly vocal about ways of solving the Potomac River capacity crunch.
Second, Metro keeps talking about running 8-car trains (rather than the current 6-car trains) when it acquires enough equipment. This makes sense, but for some reason every planning document I have seen has Metro adding 8-car trains on the Red Line first, rather than the Orange Line. Though the Red is busier than the Orange, the Red also has more frequent service. Personally I have never seen crowding on the Red that is as unbearable as that on the Orange, and figures I have seen from Metro regarding crowding on its lines verifies this. Despite this, they want to put 8 cars on the Red first. Makes no sense. I brought up this question at the first Metro town hall meeting, but I received no response.
But even more inane than any of Metro's behavior is a quote in the article from a former Department of Transportation official: "one of the biggest problems with rail is that it is so incredibly expensive that you can't really put out enough of it to make a difference." Huh? Metrorail carries forty percent of downtown commuters to their jobs, and this isn't making a difference? Arlington has built a property tax cash cow by building expensive high-rises above the Orange Line, and Metrorail isn't making a difference?
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massysett | 4:24 PM |
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I commuted all last summer on the Orange Line (East Falls Church to Farragut West) and since then on the Red Line (Wheaton to Farragut North). The Orange Line regularly left people standing on the platform at Court House for lack of space in the cars. While the Red Line can get crowded, I've never seen anyone left behind for lack of space - even at Gallery Place or Metro Center.
"one of the biggest problems with rail is that it is so incredibly expensive that you can't really put out enough of it to make a difference."
Well, maybe if you spineless bureaucrats would make a serious effort to control costs (e.g. dump Davis-Bacon) instead of writing a blank check to the construction unions, we could have decent and AFFORDABLE rapid transit, and provide employment for people from Maine to La Paz.
Well maybe you shouldn't blame the construction unions. Perhaps the real problem is within the Authority, thier 8000 employees that can't seem to do any maintenance work, or the pet maintenance/rehab contracts that waste millions, or the fact that thier engineers seem to need help so they let engineering contracts. And lets not forget preferential sole source GSA purchases.
Yeah, it's the union workers fault.
