WMATA changes some light bulbs

As reported here earlier, WMATA is cooking up a plan to change some light bulbs. This is harder than it might at first seem: there are thousands (73,836, says the story) of bulbs in the system's stations, including 144 flashing incandescent bulbs per platform edge. Those bulbs, along with many others, can't be changed when trains are running. But Metro plans to take steps to change burned-out bulbs faster: in ten days rather than in three months.

Metro will also commence a $200,000 study of station lighting.

I had noticed on a recent trip to Glenmont that the station had brightened considerably, and that the old orange-ish lights had been replaced with white ones. It was quite inviting.

Metro stations are fun to photograph because there are such interesting patterns of light and shadow in them. Some brighter lights wouldn't hurt though.

Also: Metro plans to install new bike racks. I once had a bike locker at Glenmont. It kept my bike safe and dry. Unfortunately it did the same for a nest of yellow jackets.

What Do You Do With 15 Million Tokens?

Now that every has EZ Pass, New Hampshire is stuck with 15 million turnpike tokes that it doesn't know what to do with.

Because It Worked So Well Everywhere Else...

Nashville's Davidson Transit Organiation, which operates the city's public transportation system, is preparing to strike, reports the The Nashville City Paper.

Step in, stand clear

Here's an interesting graphic representation of the passenger density on New York's 1/9 train. My guess is that the bunched up group are tourists.

BREAKING NEWS: Amtrak's N.E. Corridor Out

According to MSNBC.com, Amtrak has suspended rail service between Washington, D.C. and New York due to a major power outage that left numerous passengers stranded, including riders on five trains stuck in tunnels. NJ Transit and SEPTA have also suspended some service.

WMATA examines worker safety, introduces mobile trip planner

WMATA examines employee safety after two worker fatalities in seven months. The Ocbober 2005 fatality occurred after several systemic safety failures, so seeing another death is quite alarming.

Plus, Metro now has a trip planner for mobile phones. Now you can use the very handy trip planner from anywhere. This is the first truly useful idea I have seen that uses mobile phone Web browsers.

Also I often remind you of when Metro meetings are coming up. Now Metro puts all meetings on a calendar. Credit to Dennis Jaffe and the Riders Advisory Council for prodding Metro into doing this; it's a very handy thing.

Love Transit? Write About It For Free!

Live from the Third Rail is now looking for several additional writers to join our transit crack blogging team. What does this mean for you? Well, if you happen to have a passion for (or at least a strong interest in) mass transit and have decent writing skills, we would like to invite you to join the Smorgasblog family of bloggers and come onboard as a Third Rail writer. Blogging is, of course, unpaid, although you will be invited to future Smorgasblog drinking events (if you happen to be in the D.C. metropolitan area) and you'll gain everlasting notoriety among transit nerds everywhere.

We're open to transit bloggers from all over the world, although we've historically covered U.S. issues more heavily than world issues. And while we quite appreciate our libertarian friends, we tend to be less libertarian and more pragmatic, so please at least be of the opinion that a) public transit is good and b) its acceptable for taxes to go to paying for public transit.

We're looking to expand our coverage of other regional systems, so if you happen to live in an area served by mass transit and want to become our primary correspondent for the area, that would be great, too.

You don't have to post everyday, but we'd like you to post at least once every other week. We're powered by Movable Type, which is very easy to use, so don't be afraid if you've never blogged before -- it's easy, and we'll show you how to do it.

If you're interested, please send an email with links to a couple of articles, online postings, rants, etc., plus a note about yourself and your transit interests to livefromthethirdrail@gmail.com.

Balloons 1, Trains 0

According to a United Press International report, a balloon from a celebration in Norway floating into a train tunnel and shorted out a wire, stopping two commuter trains on the tracks. And people think they need to be worried about terrorism -- it's the rogue balloons that will get you in the end.

BREAKING NEWS: WMATA train strikes, kills worker in tunnel

A train has struck two workers just south of the Dupont Circle metro station, WTOP news is reporting. WMATA is reporting that Dupont Circle station is currently closed, with service disruptions going in both directions.

WMATA: trackwork and carpets

Some major track work planned for Metro. The bigger question here is why the Washington Post put this on the front page. Weekend track work is not extraordinary for Metro or for any other rail system and, what's more, Metro has closed stations on weekends before and the Post didn't put it above the fold. Slow news day I guess.

Also: Metro considers removing carpet from cars, in what is a periodically recurring debate. Metro will test hard floors in a single pair of cars. The story has some good photos. It also tells us that prisoners make Metro's seat cushions for the top wage of 80 cents per hour. It's the best paying job in the prison.

Carpeted cars incite strong debate, but after hearing that carpet may actually be cheaper, I only shrug when the topic comes up. I think intuition dictates that hard floors would be cheaper to maintain, but I saw enough worn-through floor tiles at my university to teach me that intuition might fail here.

Today's Edition of 'Do As We Say, Not As We Do'

Chicago Transit Authority bus drivers have a slight problem. They like running red lights. According to a report, CTA racked up 248 red light citations last year, to the tune of greater than $20,000.

And they've only paid 30 of the 248 tickets..

I want to see them start refusing to renew the CTA vehicle registrations.

Higher WMATA ridership offsets gas costs

WMATA interim general manager Dan Tangherlini says that although the agency's gas expenses have risen, higher income from fares has offset the increased costs. He doesn't expect a fare increase until 2008.

Also, the agency is considering adding retail to several stations. The agency has no plans to violate the delicate sectional balance: there would be kiosks in twelve stations: four for DC, four for Virginia, and four for Maryland. No sign that the agency would allow food purchased at the kiosks to be consumed on trains, though.

The ATMs installed in stations earlier are turning a tidy profit, with income expected to exceed $1 million this fiscal year.

Tangherlini also says he is considering removing the carpet from railcars. I recall an earlier meeting at which board member Chris Zimmerman said that the carpet/no carpet debate periodically resurfaces within the agency and that, surprisingly, it's not at all clear that uncarpeted surfaces are cheaper to maintain.

Also: Metro's director of elevator and escalator maintenance will have an online chat this Friday. And check out the winner of the Metro poster contest. These are always very good and worth checking out at Metro Center Station if you're in the area.

The Slow Train to Scranton

New Jersey transit will finally be releasing a preliminary environmental impact study of a possible Scranton to Hoboken rail line later this month. My family is from the Scranton area, and I live in New York City, so I have long been interested in this idea. My parents and aunts and uncles will occasionally tell me about how they took the train into New York City when they were young.

WMATA considering station artist performances

Metro is considering launching a Metro Entertainment Program to bring performers to the areas outside of station faregates. The details of the proposal were unveiled at an April 27 meeting of the Riders Advisory Council rail subcommittee.

The program would be modeled after the program in New York, where performers must audition prior to receiving a permit to perform (legally, at least) in the system. I can attest first-hand to the quality of the program there: I saw a great woman who stood perfectly still on top of a small crate, until you gave her money. They she would do a neat little dance before slowly stilling herself again. (What do you call that?) There were also some great breakdancers in Grand Central.

So, in a similar vein, Metro would establish a board of luminaries who would be in charge of auditioning talent. The agency envisions having musical artists, painters, stage performers, orators, and more. At first the program would focus on having performances during off-peak hours in order to generate increased ridership during those times; however, staffers have not ruled out the idea of having performers during peak times.

Staffers have selected a total of twelve stations or so (in classic Metro style, with about equal numbers of stations from DC, Maryland, and Virginia) that might make good initial candidates for performances, based on factors such as the size of the station's unpaid area. The performers will not be on the platforms or even inside the faregates, so there must be a large enough area outside the faregates where they can perform.

Performers will need to obtain licenses from the agency for $40, though fee waivers would be available for students. Artists will be free to collect donations.

The program still requires Board of Directors approval, which staffers will seek at the Board's June 15 meeting. If the Board so approves, staffers hope to have the program launched late this year.

Better SmarTrip
Boy, do people love to talk about SmarTrip. Of course I did so in this space a while back, and it often comes up at RAC meetings. One RAC member, Lillian White of Virginia, has said more than once that she thinks SmarTrip cards should be free. Who would've thought a fare payment card could generate such passion?

The subject surfaced again at April 27's meeting. Joe Powers, a rider from Prince George's County, discussed SmarTrip during the public comment period. He says that Metro should work with universities to get them to embed SmarTrip chips into student IDs.

Doors closing
A rider complained about train doors. I see occasional egregious examples of operators slamming doors on people; on one occasion the operator slammed the doors on people from Woodley Park all the way to Silver Spring--and the train was not even busy. But that's a rare example. Much more commonly, people wedge themselves into closing doors. I don't think there is any solution to the problem of closing doors--it's part of using the subway.

Also, a committee member (Michael Snyder) asked about the elevators at Forest Glen, a suburban Red Line station. It's the deepest station in the system and it has no escalators--just six high-speed elevators. A rider had noted that it seems the elevators are always where they don't need to be--that is, waiting at the platform level in the morning, and at the street level in the evening. A Metro staffer commented that he does not believe that the elevators are programmed to automatically return to the street in the morning and to the platform in the evening. Seems that would be a simple fix that would help ease the flow a bit.

Also:

• GM Tangherlini says bomb proof recycling cans will be placed on platforms.


• Rider Joe Powers suggests that Metro consider storing electricity in huge batteries so that Metro can buy electricity when it's cheap and save it for the afternoon, when it costs the most.


• RAC chairman Dennis Jaffe is working with Metro staff to establish a single, unified calendar that will contain all Metro events, including board meetings, board committee meetings, and RAC meetings.


• The agency is working to add signs, visible from outside the faregates, showing the ETA of trains. (This way riders could stand at the entrance and enjoy those new performers!)


• The full RAC meets on Wednesday and will discuss parking policy changes and the extension of the Yellow Line; see ya there!
Post Author: massysett | 9:36 PM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

WMATA's "interim" general manager

That's Dan Tangherlini, Metro's Interim General Manager, beseeching riders to contact the agency with their suggestions. I laughed out loud when I first saw this poster at the F Street entrance to the Judiciary Square station. The folks at DCist seem to think the poster is a great idea as it puts a face on the agency; what do you think? All I can do is chuckle because I can't imagine Tangherlini's predecessor doing something like this.

Metro never lets us forget that Tangherlini is, well, interim. His bio page labels him as "Interim GM and CEO," keeping the latter businesslike title, which was first adopted by Tangherlini's predecessor, Richard A. White.

Sidebar: I hate the adoption of private-sector titles for public-sector employees. I suppose the idea is to bring the private sector's supposed ethos of efficiency into the public sector. But private sector officials (whose greater efficiency I doubt very much) have a duty only to their shareholders. Public sector leaders are responsible for the public good and for the wise stewardship of public dollars--a much higher duty than any private-sector "CEO" assumes. If I were Tangherlini, I would drop this "CEO" nonsense.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Tangherlini's interimness. The agency doesn't let us forget it. His name placard for board meetings clearly says "Interim General Manager" as does his business card. Of course so does the poster featured above. (I'm grateful that none of these things say "CEO.")

So, with Tangherlini's interim status, you would think the board would be seeking his, well, permanent replacement. I expected the board would seek another person as Tangherlini is a bit young at 38. Well, maybe the board is seeking someone, but I haven't heard anything about that. No one's mentioned anything about the board hiring a search firm, which is a typical first step in the search for someone to lead a billion-dollar agency.

So maybe the board is not seeking a replacement for Tangherlini. That's fine; he might be exactly what the agency needs right now: a personable man who focuses on customer service and the nuts-and-bolts of the operation. Though Tangherlini's predecessor had his strenghts, he was neither personable nor a customer-service sort of guy. I often wonder if top brass give buses enough attention, so I'm glad that Tangherlini reportedly rides the bus to work every day.

If the board is not seeking a replacement for Tangherlini, I think they should make that clear. This "interim" status could handicap Tangherlini. Huge bureaucracies like Metro move slowly. If there are folks in the agency who want to resist any initiatives that Tangherlini may have, the resistors might figure that they'll just wait Tangherlini out until the board gets somebody else. If the board wants Tangherlini to lead the agency, then he needs the board's support.

And of course if the board does intend to replace Tangherlini, well, snap to it! There's no point in leaving a billion-dollar, 10,000-employee agency rudderless.

BART pride

I spotted this guy at a Whole Foods Market in Silver Spring, Maryland. That's a BART farecard on his t-shirt. He said he had just been in the Baja Fresh restaurant a couple of blocks away and that a person there also recognized the farecard. He says the t-shirts are also made with "San Francisco."

I told him that of course WMATA and BART are sort of cousins: they both were among the first to use magnetic fare collection media, and WMATA's last general manager came from BART. They both strike me as commuter rail systems of sorts, with widely spaced stations (contrast New York, with many of its stations separated by much shorter distances.)

A week or two ago I also saw a guy walking down the street in Chinatown, D.C., with a t-shirt sporting a 6 in a big green circle. "Ah, the Lexington Avenue local," I said.

WMATA does sell t-shirts, but not much is available. I can't imagine any area resident who would wear one, though, and the whole point of them would be lost on any of the tourists, who much prefer their FBI sweatshirts.