The answer: Locals remember Metro's past, new people don't come from transit cultures and would find something to complain about if they drove (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=6778)
Yes, we Washingtonians remember Metros past...but it seems like the system has just plummeted in the last 8 or so years. Plus the media is harping on everything WMATA has done wrong since June 22nd, 2009, and suddenly it's the "in" thing to do. Similar to posting articles about people complaining about WMATA in this forum, eh?
Quote from: Tritransit Area on August 12, 2010, 04:31:43 PM
Yes, we Washingtonians remember Metros past...but it seems like the system has just plummeted in the last 8 or so years. Plus the media is harping on everything WMATA has done wrong since June 22nd, 2009, and suddenly it's the "in" thing to do. Similar to posting articles about people complaining about WMATA in this forum, eh?
I think it stems from people's arrogance as well. They expect 5 star service all the time and don't understand the ideals of public transportation. People always seem to follow the negative about everything and their hatred stems from that. Metro does a good thing, they don't care. An accident happens, something breaks down; the moans, groans, and heavy sighs come out. Metro isn't perfect. No system is. It's just that its a really old system that has alot of problems that require the proper funding. Instead of people complaining about Metro, they should be complaining about why Metro doesn't have dedicated funding from the feds.
It's like that in any city though. People just complain because they think that their fares should mean that they are delivered perfect service. Should they expect good, reliable service? Of course. Should they expect things to happen every now and then? Absolutely. For some reason, there is this expectation that there should never be a delay, never be a malfunction and never be imperfect.
However, that being said, there has to be decent management to run the place. If you have employees doing what they can to make it work but get no support from management, then what used to be transparent to the passengers, shows up in more ways than one.
I don't agree to Federal Government takeovers of transit systems. That's ridiculous and unnecessary. What needs to be done is local taxation to assist in subsidising it rather than running a socialist transit system. The Government has their hands in enough, leave transit alone and if it doesn't succeed, then it goes away and people will realize how important it was to have a dedicated funding source with competent management.
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on August 12, 2010, 04:39:23 PM
It's just that its a really old system that has alot of problems that require the proper funding. Instead of people complaining about Metro, they should be complaining about why Metro doesn't have dedicated funding from the feds.
I certainly wouldn't call it old, but after 30 plus years of operation, one could expect some things to wear out here and there.
Quote from: Perry on August 13, 2010, 12:33:56 PM
It's like that in any city though. People just complain because they think that their fares should mean that they are delivered perfect service. Should they expect good, reliable service? Of course. Should they expect things to happen every now and then? Absolutely. For some reason, there is this expectation that there should never be a delay, never be a malfunction and never be imperfect.
However, that being said, there has to be decent management to run the place. If you have employees doing what they can to make it work but get no support from management, then what used to be transparent to the passengers, shows up in more ways than one.
I don't agree to Federal Government takeovers of transit systems. That's ridiculous and unnecessary. What needs to be done is local taxation to assist in subsidising it rather than running a socialist transit system. The Government has their hands in enough, leave transit alone and if it doesn't succeed, then it goes away and people will realize how important it was to have a dedicated funding source with competent management.
I'd agree that people will complain no matter what happens. Nowadays, I think some of it is justified, but folks do seem to expect more than what a public transit ride should be.
In regards to emplyees, I think one of the biggest problems is lack of accountability. If you have this in place on all levels and actually hold people accountable when they fall short, many will fly right. This also means getting on these supervisors who seem to think their ability to write someone up is a benefit.
I'm in total agreement with the local taxation thing. This is why I take such a hard stance on Metrorail fares. Sure, I can afford it if I choose to use Metrorail, but what about those low income people who can't afford to live near Metrorail stations, in DC or nearby to DC. I understand the complexity involving multiple jurisdictions, but this is not rocket science and this is also (part of ) what we pay the local politicians to do. To summarize my position... I think the disparity in Metrorail fares is so significant that there's little or no incentive for many people (including myself to use it). Obviously WMATA doesn't deserve all the blame they get, but they need to take ownership for some of this stuff.
just my 2 cents.
A lot of the problems with Metro stem for the fact that it seems whoever first proposed the Metro system was so bent on the looks of it rather than the operations of it....and pushing buses to be the step-child of the transportation scene. Perhaps it got even more so with the end of the trolleys and the subway was the way to finally push the buses out of the way. But if more thought went into regional planning to realize that the city wasn't going to be the only destination of workers that more suburb to suburb commuting would take place and that eventually the system would not have the capacity to do what it was intended to, we would have also had a plan to have a transit-based tax to help fund it.
Poor planning is rampant everywhere. We're suffering big time in Vegas because the street designs favor the automobile, not buses or pedestrians. We're having to reinvent the wheel to make it more pedestrian/biker/transit friendly. Not sure what type of Kool-Aid planners were drinking back in the day, but for several cities of today, they did a horrible job.
That to me sounds a lot like 60's and 70's planning and architecture in general. So many things from that era have been scrapped or reworked/rethought, because some of the concepts from that era are just disastrous...
There are so many good points in this thread I'm not sure where to begin! Yes, people seem to expect perfect service as apparently their fares pay for the cost of operations and allows the system to get a profit (ha!) but Metro is getting ridiculous. There's a line between the occasional "oh well, things happen" and chronic problems that keep on growing and aren't addressed. Especially when those problems could easily be fixed with a matter of policy.
I also agree that looks were put before functionality in terms of designing Metrorail. Honestly, sometimes it's hard to predict the development that would spur, and towns that were once bedroom communities have turned into bustling centers of commerce (thanks partly to the existence of Metro). I'm not sure anyone at the time would have expected the DC area to host the 2nd busiest rapid transit system in the nation.
I do support local taxation, and I believe that most people would as well. However, they have to SEE the money going somewhere, for service to be expanded and for cutbacks to be reasonable. Nobody wants to pay more for the same daily nonesense, so unless Metro has a plan on enhancing service that's VISIBLE to the public, they aren't going to get that support. And no, they shouldn't have federal funding if other struggling systems can't get a piece of the pie. But I don't like federally operated systems...they cause enough problems with their unfunded mandates.
Metro is new compared to many systems out there. I don't recall them having 100 year old stations, bridges, substations, and tunnels to worry about. It's a shame the system wasn't built with maintenance matters in mind...it's just so obvious that it wasn't with all the problems that are occurring. For some reason, they were thinking "expand, expand, expand!" and didn't think (well, let's keep our system in a good state of repair.)
Quote from: Tritransit Area on August 14, 2010, 10:55:58 AM
There are so many good points in this thread I'm not sure where to begin! Yes, people seem to expect perfect service as apparently their fares pay for the cost of operations and allows the system to get a profit (ha!) but Metro is getting ridiculous. There's a line between the occasional "oh well, things happen" and chronic problems that keep on growing and aren't addressed. Especially when those problems could easily be fixed with a matter of policy.
The only problem is that how do you change the policy? The easy solution (restructure the board and cry mercy to ATU 689) isn't easy and Metro still has a mindset that the suburbs are rich, the city is poor, and any restructuring of a bus route may be seen as racist. Metro needs a balls-to-the-walls leader who realizes that the DC of 1990 doesn't exist anymore and will admit that there is a middle class that chooses to ride Metro rather than drive and sees Metro as a urban subway just as much as commuter rail. If they could get Ri
QuoteI also agree that looks were put before functionality in terms of designing Metrorail. Honestly, sometimes it's hard to predict the development that would spur, and towns that were once bedroom communities have turned into bustling centers of commerce (thanks partly to the existence of Metro). I'm not sure anyone at the time would have expected the DC area to host the 2nd busiest rapid transit system in the nation.
As I've said before, if I could go back to 1970 and tell all this to Harry Weese, he'd laugh in my face. Heading north, Toronto and Montreal's systems are of similar vintage and carry more people (of course, larger cities too) but don't have the same problems as they were built as urban subways. Metro's flaw was not settling on a direction of what to be.
QuoteI do support local taxation, and I believe that most people would as well. However, they have to SEE the money going somewhere, for service to be expanded and for cutbacks to be reasonable. Nobody wants to pay more for the same daily nonesense, so unless Metro has a plan on enhancing service that's VISIBLE to the public, they aren't going to get that support. And no, they shouldn't have federal funding if other struggling systems can't get a piece of the pie. But I don't like federally operated systems...they cause enough problems with their unfunded mandates.
The only reason why Metro should be given federal funding/operation is its unique situation of covering multiple jurisdictions. Being a city-functioning-as-as-state hurts DC enough as it is and Maryland/Virginia use their areas as their sugar daddies. If Annapolis is going to just leech off of MoCo and if Richmond is going to have Arlington/Alexandria/Fairfax be their ATM, who will want to support it. Federal funding will be easier than the logical solution of making the Metro territory a 51st state which I think would work.
QuoteMetro is new compared to many systems out there. I don't recall them having 100 year old stations, bridges, substations, and tunnels to worry about. It's a shame the system wasn't built with maintenance matters in mind...it's just so obvious that it wasn't with all the problems that are occurring. For some reason, they were thinking "expand, expand, expand!" and didn't think (well, let's keep our system in a good state of repair.)
I think the ARS was a bit too pie in the sky and it could've functioned fine without some portions being built. Blue east of Stadium-Armory and Red north of Silver Spring come to mind of lines that could've not been built with limited consequences; if it wasn't for the PTO the Yellow south of King Street would be there too. Maybe MARTA and MTA Maryland had the best idea by not reaching all their goals if the price of goals was inevitable collapse.
QuoteI think the ARS was a bit too pie in the sky and it could've functioned fine without some portions being built. Blue east of Stadium-Armory and Red north of Silver Spring come to mind of lines that could've not been built with limited consequences; if it wasn't for the PTO the Yellow south of King Street would be there too. Maybe MARTA and MTA Maryland had the best idea by not reaching all their goals if the price of goals was inevitable collapse.
You've never seen the drawing of what Silver Spring would look like if it was the last stop on the Red Line, which some people did advocate for. What does every last stop on every other branch have? If Silver Spring were the last stop, it would have a huge one. Just because ridership beyond Silver Spring is low doesn't mean those people wouldn't need to park their cars somewhere...
QuoteMetro's flaw was not settling on a direction of what to be.
It knew what it wanted to be and was designed that way: a federal shuttle to take workers to their jobs in the morning and home again in the evening. I don't think most people back then would have predicted the area and Metro would necessarily grow in the ways they have, with entertainment areas next to the federal buildings downtown, reverse commuting, one of the fastest growing areas in the country, the second busiest subway in the US, etc.
QuoteAs I've said before, if I could go back to 1970 and tell all this to Harry Weese, he'd laugh in my face.
One of Harry Weese's instructions was to create something that wouldn't be like NYC's subway. Remember what reputation the NYC Subway had at the time Metro was being designed and built and that no one wanted WMATA to have that repuation. I'd say for the most part, it has succeeded, though now we are starting to see what an underfunded subway looks like. And even so, everyone I know who rode the NYC subway in the 1970s say today's WMATA is not anywhere close to being that bad (yet).
Hindsight is always 20/20. I think the planners of WMATA back in the 1960s and 1970s did a good job considering what their projections forecasted and what their knowledge of the area at that time was. The original GGW piece that is being discussed here has some valid points: people compare things to what their original experience is, many people who use transit here might not use it in other cities, and there are some people who are high powered in other spheres of life so they are high powered in terms of their transit expectations, too. But if you asked me if the original planners and designers of Metro met their job objectives, I would say "yes" without any hestitation.
Scrabbleship
As I've said before, if I could go back to 1970 and tell all this to Harry Weese, he'd laugh in my face. Heading north, Toronto and Montreal's systems are of similar vintage and carry more people (of course, larger cities too) but don't have the same problems as they were built as urban subways. Metro's flaw was not settling on a direction of what to be.
This is an issue related to the fact that the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. The various jurisdictions land use an zoning bodies were doing their thing with little or no regard to what WMATA vision was.
I think the ARS was a bit too pie in the sky and it could've functioned fine without some portions being built. Blue east of Stadium-Armory and Red north of Silver Spring come to mind of lines that could've not been built with limited consequences; if it wasn't for the PTO the Yellow south of King Street would be there too.
There was some actual though of making Silver Spring the northern terminal on the B end of the Red line. WMATA threatened Montgomery County and the state of Maryland with plans to build a 3,500 space 7 level parking garage above the original bus terminal at Silver Spring if the line was not extended beyond Silver Spring. I have a copy of the rendering of that garage that was use as part of that threat.
The same thing would have likely happen at the Orange line stations had the Blue line not been built east of D&G Junction. Many of the pre ARS maps didn't even have the route out East Capitol Street and Central Avenue.
Maybe MARTA and MTA Maryland had the best idea by not reaching all their goals if the price of goals was inevitable collapse.
MARTA's plans were not reached because many of the suburban jurisdiction chose not to participate in the building out of that system.
Baltimore didn't get the full 71 mile system because of politics. Then mayor William Donald Schaefer and later governor had a hard on for light rail resulting in the truncation of the one line that was built and the deletion of the other routes. The eastwest route of the then proposed subway line is the Red line that is being proposed today. Nearly all of the southern half and northern section north of the Baltimore Beltway would have use the same alignment of today's Central Light Rail.
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on August 15, 2010, 12:35:07 PM
One of Harry Weese's instructions was to create something that wouldn't be like NYC's subway. Remember what reputation the NYC Subway had at the time Metro was being designed and built and that no one wanted WMATA to have that repuation. I'd say for the most part, it has succeeded, though now we are starting to see what an underfunded subway looks like. And even so, everyone I know who rode the NYC subway in the 1970s say today's WMATA is not anywhere close to being that bad (yet).
Oren - I'm not quite understanding your statement. In the 1970s NYCTA's biggest problems were high crime rates in the subway, graffiti, of course and then conditions were horrible as this was the differred maintenance years. I was a youngster in those years, but I can remember it well. Things were indeed terrible, but I honestly don't see how anyone could ever compare NYC subway to Metrorail. The two systems are far too different.
Quote from: WayneNYC on August 15, 2010, 04:29:05 PM
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on August 15, 2010, 12:35:07 PM
One of Harry Weese's instructions was to create something that wouldn't be like NYC's subway. Remember what reputation the NYC Subway had at the time Metro was being designed and built and that no one wanted WMATA to have that repuation. I'd say for the most part, it has succeeded, though now we are starting to see what an underfunded subway looks like. And even so, everyone I know who rode the NYC subway in the 1970s say today's WMATA is not anywhere close to being that bad (yet).
Oren - I'm not quite understanding your statement. In the 1970s NYCTA's biggest problems were high crime rates in the subway, graffiti, of course and then conditions were horrible as this was the differred maintenance years. I was a youngster in those years, but I can remember it well. Things were indeed terrible, but I honestly don't see how anyone could ever compare NYC subway to Metrorail. The two systems are far too different.
I've heard the comparison made, I'm not going to try and decide whether it is a fair one in terms of the deferred maintenance. However, I believe WMATA was designed with open sight lines and with few columns on platforms, as examples, so that criminals would not have a place to hide and people would feel safe, because the impression at the time was that subways were good places for criminals to hide and travel around. Throw in the National Capital Planning Commission requirements, and I think that is the (simple) explanation for large parts of Harry Weese's design decisions.
WMATAGMOAGH
. . . WMATA was designed with open sight lines and with few columns on platforms, as examples, so that criminals would not have a place to hide and people would feel safe, because the impression at the time was that subways were good places for criminals to hide and travel around. Throw in the National Capital Planning Commission requirements, and I think that is the (simple) explanation for large parts of Harry Weese's design decisions.
Harry Weese and his group of architects and engineers went on a world wind tour to see what other did right and what they wrong. From the get go they went with a columnless station design. The fact that it met the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts was nothing but icing on the cake. Mind you some Weese's proposal as to how the stations would be finished did not meet the approval of those commissions, but the basic concept of the open columnless station arch vault was foundation of the design.
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on August 15, 2010, 05:02:02 PM
Quote from: WayneNYC on August 15, 2010, 04:29:05 PM
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on August 15, 2010, 12:35:07 PM
One of Harry Weese's instructions was to create something that wouldn't be like NYC's subway. Remember what reputation the NYC Subway had at the time Metro was being designed and built and that no one wanted WMATA to have that repuation. I'd say for the most part, it has succeeded, though now we are starting to see what an underfunded subway looks like. And even so, everyone I know who rode the NYC subway in the 1970s say today's WMATA is not anywhere close to being that bad (yet).
Oren - I'm not quite understanding your statement. In the 1970s NYCTA's biggest problems were high crime rates in the subway, graffiti, of course and then conditions were horrible as this was the differred maintenance years. I was a youngster in those years, but I can remember it well. Things were indeed terrible, but I honestly don't see how anyone could ever compare NYC subway to Metrorail. The two systems are far too different.
I've heard the comparison made, I'm not going to try and decide whether it is a fair one in terms of the deferred maintenance. However, I believe WMATA was designed with open sight lines and with few columns on platforms, as examples, so that criminals would not have a place to hide and people would feel safe, because the impression at the time was that subways were good places for criminals to hide and travel around. Throw in the National Capital Planning Commission requirements, and I think that is the (simple) explanation for large parts of Harry Weese's design decisions.
In their comparisons between the two, if they're talking about the conditions, then I understand. I mentioned the deferred maintenance, but I'm not at all offering it an excuse for the NYC subway system being so bad in the 1970s. The truth is that there's no way it could've gone that far downhill in just a few years. That said, I still can't compare the two because again, there's just too many differences. One reason why some might hold WMATA to higher (possibly unfair at times) standards is because they have to benefit of learning from the older systems like NYCTA, CTA, MBTA and SEPTA. Then they also had the benefit of late 20th century technology. One of the first things I noticed on newer systems is the lack of support columns. However, I always assumed it was simply one of the engineering improvements on newer systems.