http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9202/wmata-board-ponders-cutting-latenight-service (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9202/wmata-board-ponders-cutting-latenight-service)
The three big cuts on the table are to cut weekend late-night service (doing so would allow for 45 extra work days of maintenance per year), to end off-peak Yellow Line north of Mt. Vernon Square, and to restore off-peak turnbacks at Grosvenor.
Late-night cuts have already led to a major debate over the fallout from eliminating such service ranging from hurting second/third shift workers to putting partygoers in their cars and posing a DUI risk. I know the DC area has changed a lot since late-night weekend service began, especially in terms of amount of things to do, but how did people survive beforehand?
I think any cut of late-night service should be contingent on putting in a bus network, in the vein of SEPTA's Nite Owl service or the All-Nighter Network in the Bay Area, that'd pick up the slack to not strand people and to at least toss some bone to riders. Given how the Red Line has turned into a rehabilitation/trackwork hell, the Grosvenor-Shady Grove portion already is seeing reduced service. Cutting the Yellow Line off peak would backfire big time as that area has boomed big time since it came in and a 50% service cut could keep people and their money away.
Agreed, that if Metro wants to discontinue late-night rail service, that they should have a regularly-scheduled bustitution to replace it overnight, which only stops at Metro stations.
Otherwise, Yellow service to Fort Totten would certainly be a loss. Whenever I Metro into Virginia, I often find myself taking the Yellow Line up to Fort Totten and then transferring to the Red Line to Glenmont from there. At least to me, it seems more efficient than transferring at Gallery Place, plus it's less crowded. It's been years since I've been to any of the extension stations save for U Street-Cardozo, but I appreciate being able to make the connection.
Quote from: SchuminWeb on February 10, 2011, 11:31:23 PM
Agreed, that if Metro wants to discontinue late-night rail service, that they should have a regularly-scheduled bustitution to replace it overnight, which only stops at Metro stations.
Otherwise, Yellow service to Fort Totten would certainly be a loss. Whenever I Metro into Virginia, I often find myself taking the Yellow Line up to Fort Totten and then transferring to the Red Line to Glenmont from there. At least to me, it seems more efficient than transferring at Gallery Place, plus it's less crowded. It's been years since I've been to any of the extension stations save for U Street-Cardozo, but I appreciate being able to make the connection.
As for bustitution, I don't think with the current fleet and operations that it would be feasible in trying to move a crapload of people from the city to the burbs. You'd need tics on every line just to transport people plus where are people going to wait for the bus (let alone if they want to)
Reading the comments to this post (and the post itself) is quite a laugh. Maryland should lose Red Line service to Shady Grove because Mount Vernon Square cutbacks might be instituted? If Maryland has the money to keep that service running and wants to spend it, tough luck for DC. Perhaps, a few trainsets can be saved if the Yellow Line is cut north of Mount Vernon Square but at busier times losing Yellow Line service, the Green Line would have between 6 and 8 TPH instead of the current 4-5 along its entire length. This would still be a reduction from the current 10 TPH middays and Saturdays and 8 TPH on Sundays between Mount Vernon Square and Fort Totten, but a slight increase over the 5 TPH middays and Saturdays and 4 TPH on Sundays that ran prior to January 2007 along that section. (Ben, as an aside, I've seen ridership data for how many people could potentially transfer at Fort Totten instead of Gallery Place to get to Takoma and points north or vice versa, and while it was several years ago, unless the numbers have drastically changed since that data was collected, let's just say ridership from those stations to Yellow Line stations in Virginia is extremely low so while you might find the connection to be convenient, you are probably alone in using it. It certainly isn't worth keeping for the benefit of Red Line to VA riders.) Also, increased service north of Mount Vernon Square will be back in some form when the Silver Line opens.
The idea to roll back the opening of weekday service to 5:30 AM should be a non-starter. It is quite clear (yet again) that the people commenting on this blog are new to the area, the early opening was accomplished simply by allowing passengers to ride trains that entered service at 5:30 AM in the middle of the lines and opening the station gates to allow passengers to get those trains. In the center of town, the first train doesn't come until 5:30 in most cases. The savings from delaying the opening are minimal at best, unless the first train is delayed by 30 minutes systemwide, which means no service downtown until 6 AM. I don't think that is what these people want.
The MBTA tried overnight bustitution instead of running the subway later and it failed miserably, for some reason no one wanted to ride the bus. SEPTA's owl service on the MFL and BSS was instituted as a temporary replacement for trains (due to construction, I think) and was one of those temporary changes that became permanent. I've always thought bustitution for late night Metro service might work better than extending the service until 3 AM, and I have come up with proposed routes for how to run such a service, but not all stations would be served on my routes (Arlington Cemetery and Tenleytown being among them).
The reality is that Metro ridership after 1 AM and especially after 2 AM is extremely low. The 45 extra days of construction figure comes from the fact that each time they need to set up and clean up the worksite, they lose time. If X hours are available to do actual work between the time the worksite is set up sometime after 3 AM and when it is taken down some time before 7 AM, if the system closes at 1 AM instead, they now have X+2 hours available to work (I'm not sure what the actual value of X is right now). I would propose closing the system at 2 AM on weekends at the latest, maybe even as early as 1 AM but ridership numbers might justify keeping the 1 AM to 2 AM hour. If a bustitution was implemented, I'd go for midnight closings on the weekends, and those buses should only run Fridays and Saturdays initially.
Given the state of Maryland's allegedly limited transportation funding (let alone how they treat Montgomery and PG like an ATM) and the current state of the Red Line, reinstating off-peak turnbacks at Grosvenor should be a given. With the Red Line's multi-rehab underway and weekends of dual single-track zones pretty much a given, Maryland would be spending money for something that would rarely be in effect on weekends and would have limited benefit on weekdays, especially since the number of people taking Metro to White Flint/the plazas near Twinbrook are quite low and the rest would be county workers and NRC employees.
I often ride the Yellow Line south from Columbia Heights into Arlington and I always notice a decent number of people who got on prior to Mt. Vernon Square are still on once the train leaves L'Enfant Plaza, the bigger problem is that the time to turn Yellows back often leads to train bunching and longer waits. If any of the three plans gets spared, this should be the one as ridership at all the stations has grown since the Yellow Line was extended and I'd be willing to say that DC would fight for this even with the board shakeup.
Ideally a good weekend schedule would be to close at 1:00 AM Saturday/Sunday, reopen 6:30 AM Saturday/Sunday. Compared to peer systems, Metro already has far more downtime than peer systems (http://tracktwentynine.blogspot.com/2009/12/transit-tuesday-last-train-out.html) and as it is early weekend morning buses are often packed to the gills. Being closed for 5.5 hours is a good compromise between the ideal and the current situation. The 5:00 AM weekday opening is merely a artifact from the immediate post-9/11 era when it was seen as a necessity, yes?
Weekend overnight bustitution failed in Boston because the city traditionally hasn't run much in terms of late-night transit (after around 1:30 AM, even on weekends, all transit service is finished for the night) and people merely didn't know what to do and it didn't help that key bus routes weren't extended to meet the buses. What good is overnight bustitution if no other routes are running? It's worked in Philly because it actually replaced service and some routes are also running (nearly) all-night. If Metro could cooperate, I'd propose a program in the vein of the All-Nighter Network in the Bay Area where other agencies would cooperate for overnight service paralleling Metro to take the burden off of Metro. I'm sure Connector, Ride On, and possibly DASH would be willing to help if approached.
Quote from: Scrabbleship on February 11, 2011, 02:18:17 PM
Given the state of Maryland's allegedly limited transportation funding (let alone how they treat Montgomery and PG like an ATM) and the current state of the Red Line, reinstating off-peak turnbacks at Grosvenor should be a given. With the Red Line's multi-rehab underway and weekends of dual single-track zones pretty much a given, Maryland would be spending money for something that would rarely be in effect on weekends and would have limited benefit on weekdays, especially since the number of people taking Metro to White Flint/the plazas near Twinbrook are quite low and the rest would be county workers and NRC employees.
I often ride the Yellow Line south from Columbia Heights into Arlington and I always notice a decent number of people who got on prior to Mt. Vernon Square are still on once the train leaves L'Enfant Plaza, the bigger problem is that the time to turn Yellows back often leads to train bunching and longer waits. If any of the three plans gets spared, this should be the one as ridership at all the stations has grown since the Yellow Line was extended and I'd be willing to say that DC would fight for this even with the board shakeup.
What I think is funny is that your ok with cutting the service of the Red Line services North of Grosvenor but want to keep the Yellow Line service to Fort Totten because YOU use that service. Well guess what, I USE the service North of Grosvenor on the Red Line. Now as a rider of the Red Line DAILY and no I'm not a NRC or County employee or someone that goes to the plazas as you assume that's all the ridership on this side of the Red Line, I can deal with every other train turning back off peak. But I can say that turning Yellow line trains at Mt. Vernon would be ok too because on top of Green Line service, you have PLENTY of bus options to any of the stations in the mid city segment.
In fact I say cut back both to save the weekend evening service. Also Oren, I rode at 2am last week and the ridership is pretty decent. I agree it's not great in terms of ridership considering other times of the day, but it serves a great purpose and would definitely hurt the city.
Chris,
Unlike the blogosphere, I'd rather have actual data in front of me before declaring definitively here is what should be done to solve the issue at hand. Unfortunately, I probably won't get access to all the data I would want and permission to share it. The last time I rode the Metro after midnight, I had to wait 40 minutes for a train and there were hardly any standees on the train as we were leaving Dupont Circle, if any at all. I forget the exact time the train came. I generally haven't ridden the Metro much late at night, so I'm relying on these reports of ridership numbers to form my opinions, not my own experiences. If it weren't for the maintenance issues at hand cited by Dave Kubicek, I'd probably agree with cutting the Red and Yellow line services before the late night service. However, since the late night service seems to be having a moderate to major impact on the ability of WMATA to maintain its rail system, I personally think that it is worth looking into ways to see if that can be changed while maintaining some sort of late night service, whether it be by bustitution or closing an hour earlier. Unfortunately, the cuts are likely to hurt someone, whether it be the riders north of Grosvenor, in Columbia Heights, or riding at 2 AM. I find the bloggers have no problem advocating their own needs, but the actual transit professionals see the bigger picture and actually try to create a balance between what everyone wants and what is practical and feasible.
Jason, Track Twenty-Nine's analysis of the Metro downtime is extremely flawed and ought not be cited as a source by anyone. The first train each morning leaves the first station on each line at about 5 AM and gets to the core at about 5:30. However, this "first" train is NOT the first train for the second half of the line. Other trains enter service further down the line at around 5:30 AM and start picking up passengers from a designated point. So the "first" train of the morning reaches the end of the line some 15-20 minutes later than the actual first train for those locations. Factor that in and the Metro system is fully open at 5:30 AM or a few minutes after by this blogger's metric, and then Metro's downtime isn't all that much lower than its peer systems.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Metro opened at 5 AM and the extra 30 minutes of service was paid for by DoD. I believe the opening was rolled back to 5:30 at some point before becoming permanently 5 AM as a concession to riders as a result of the 2003 fare increase that also moved the system open to 7 AM on weekends. When the system opened at 5:30, trains were positioned at the start of service in such a way that every station saw its first train within 10-15 minutes of opening. The 5 AM opening was accomplished by turning the deadhead segments of the trains scheduled to arrive in the core closest to 5:30 into revenue trains, effectively making the extension of service almost cost neutral.
Another argument for not implementing the Grosvenor turnbacks: Shady Grove is one of the highest ridership stations on the entire Red Line. It is the 6th busiest station on the entire line (out of 27) and the busiest outside of the downtown core. However, Rockville ranks 22nd, Twinbrook ranks 25th, and White Flint ranks 26th. Looking at it another way, since Glenmont ranks 18th, Wheaton ranks 24th, and Forest Glen ranks 27th (i.e. fewest boardings on the entire line), Shady Grove is by far the busiest station on the Red Line to not have "full" Red Line service, the busiest station on the entire Metrorail system that doesn't have two lines serving it or both full length and short turn Red Line trains serving it, and in eyeballing the data so I might have missed one, the busiest station outside of the downtown core (and one of the busiest stations systemwide, busier than many stations located downtown). Total ridership from Shady Grove to White Flint inclusive is about 30000 boardings on the average weekday, with 14107 of them at Shady Grove alone. Meanwhile, average daily weekday boardings from Shaw to Fort Totten inclusive is about 35000, with about 7200 of those being at Fort Totten, and some of those 7200 are getting on Red Line trains or Green Line trains to Greenbelt. The busiest station in that stretch is Columbia Heights, with about 11000 boardings.
Further analysis of Red Line ridership can be found at http://forums.dctransit.info/index.php?topic=1547.msg15363#msg15363. I'm drawing the ridership numbers from http://wmata.com/pdfs/planning/2009%20Metrorail%20boarding%20by%20station.pdf.
Quote from: WMATAGMOAGH on February 12, 2011, 12:00:33 PM
Another argument for not implementing the Grosvenor turnbacks: Shady Grove is one of the highest ridership stations on the entire Red Line. It is the 6th busiest station on the entire line (out of 27) and the busiest outside of the downtown core. However, Rockville ranks 22nd, Twinbrook ranks 25th, and White Flint ranks 26th. Looking at it another way, since Glenmont ranks 18th, Wheaton ranks 24th, and Forest Glen ranks 27th (i.e. fewest boardings on the entire line), Shady Grove is by far the busiest station on the Red Line to not have "full" Red Line service, the busiest station on the entire Metrorail system that doesn't have two lines serving it or both full length and short turn Red Line trains serving it, and in eyeballing the data so I might have missed one, the busiest station outside of the downtown core (and one of the busiest stations systemwide, busier than many stations located downtown).
Shady Grove is a bit of an anomaly given that it's an end-of-the-line station that has both good highway access and a good amount of buses around the clock feeding into it, I can't think of any terminal that has both of those attributes. What's more impressive is how Silver Spring often plays leapfrog with Shady Grove for the top ridership in Maryland (Silver Spring had 30 less boardings*) though Silver Spring is helped by having many people living within walking distance and having a unreal amount of bus feed.
In terms of the downtown core, I can name at least 4 with more ridership: Rosslyn, Pentagon, Pentagon City, and Crystal City. Depending on what the boundary lines, some people may toss Dupont Circle and/or Union Station in there too.
* Considering what went on in 2009 and that also the S9 probably took some Metro riders regardless of what happened, their circumstances are much different than Shady Grove.
QuoteTotal ridership from Shady Grove to White Flint inclusive is about 30000 boardings on the average weekday, with 14107 of them at Shady Grove alone. Meanwhile, average daily weekday boardings from Shaw to Fort Totten inclusive is about 35000, with about 7200 of those being at Fort Totten, and some of those 7200 are getting on Red Line trains or Green Line trains to Greenbelt. The busiest station in that stretch is Columbia Heights, with about 11000 boardings.
As gentrification and redevelopment creeps closer to the Georgia Avenue corridor, this number will only increase further though Columbia Heights has a 1-2 punch of a massive increase of housing units and of name retail. Notice how all the stations in that stretch have shown steady growth while Rockville/Twinbrook/White Flint have been relatively stagnant in comparison. The best thing that could happen for the western leg of the Red Line is the further redevelopment of the White Flint area, IMO.
Vienna is only about 1000 boardings behind Shady Grove, so I wouldn't call it an anomaly. I also didn't pull up the PDF while wirting this post but the other end of the line stations generally have higher numbers than other stations on their respective branches IIRC. I also wouldn't jump to conclusions about the S9 taking away that many riders from the Metro, considering how many other potential S9 ridership sources there are (existing S line customers and totally new customers) and the fact the S9 doesn't serve the Metro directly.
I define the core as follows (all lists inclusive):
Red: Dupont Circle-New York Avenue
Orange: Rosslyn-Capitol South
Blue: Crystal City-Capitol South (though I'm debating whether the boundary should be there, National Airport, Pentagon, Rosslyn, or whether Arlington Cemetery should be included)
Yellow: Crystal City-Gallery Place (same note for the Blue Line applies here, the other potential boundary would be L'Enfant)
Green: L'Enfant Plaza-Gallery Place
Essentially, my definition is the point in the morning where riders start alighting in great numbers. I believe the points I've listed are at or close to the maximum load points on each line as determined by Metro.
As Chris pointed out, there are far more transit options for riders in the mid-city Green/Yellow segment besides Metrorail than there are for riders along the western end of the Red Line. I think out of these three ideas (night service, all Reds to Shady Grove, Yellows to Fort Totten off peak), the strongest arguments for retaining any one service go for the Red Line, and I'm not saying that because my home station is along there. I say it because the Red Line has the fewest alternatives in the event of a cut and because the ridership numbers in my mind justify retaining the service. For the Yellow Line, see my suggestion on bumping up the Green Line TPH just a bit to compensate and possibly saving that way, and also the multitude of other options for getting around in that part of the city. For the late night service, I realize there is a total loss of service and mobility if the service is discontinued entirely, but there is the added advantage of having a wider maintenance window each night to do essential work.
My take on reinstating the cutbacks is that with the Red Line starting to undergo several years of rehab and dual trackwork becoming a regular weekend occurrence, Maryland would be getting a lot less than they paid for. How many realistic weekends in FY2012 would Silver Spring-Shady Grove trains run? Should Maryland pay for something they won't get every penny from when Annapolis is whining about limited transportation funds? Every weekend when the short-turns are NY Ave-Van Ness/Friendship Heights/Medical Center, Maryland gets nothing for their money and those weekends are more frequent than rare lately.
The mid-city Yellow concerns come from people with ties to Virginia that live along that line and from Virginians that don't want to switch trains to enjoy the nightlife at U Street/Columbia Heights. In all honesty, the turn times for the Yellow skew how often trains come heading southbound and your plan could work well as many people often have long waits because the gap between Green and Yellow is less than 6 minutes.
Let me repeat, unless there has been a huge surge since the ridership data that I had available to me was collected, there is NOT enough ridership from Columbia Heights to Yellow Line stations in Virginia to justify running both the Green and Yellow lines north of Mount Vernon Square solely for that reason. Cutting the Green Line back to Mount Vernon Square and running the Yellow Line up to Greenbelt would result in just as many people needing to make transfers, if not more, than if the Yellow Line is cut.
More on my Green Line proposal: OW running time from Branch Avenue to Greenbelt (or vice versa) is about the same as RT running time from Huntington to Mount Vernon Square and back (including the relay) in terms of train requirements. I'm not going to sit down and try making a mock schedule to figure out if an additional 1 or 2 6 car trains on the Green Line combined with cutting the Yellow Line back to Mount Vernon Square actually results in a service cut, so it may not actually be possible to do, but it might be a solution of sorts that appeases many people in that corridor, and has the added benefit of additional service on the Green Line in southeast.
As I understand it, the Red Line rehab is mostly concentrated in the core, not at the outer ends, since that is the older section of the line. Therefore, the limiting factor isn't whether trains can actually make it to the ends of the lines, but rather how many trains can get through downtown. Also, a New York Avenue short turn is irrelevant, that would be a Silver Spring train otherwise and no one is seriously suggesting that every train should go through to Glenmont, the ridership doesn't justify it. I'm willing to consider the argument that instituting short turns on the weekends might have merit, if that money were to be used to maintain late night service (maintenance arguments not withstanding) or Yellow Line service in the mid-city segment on the weekends. But I don't think the Red Line should be turning back at Grosvenor outside of rush hours during the week, and I'd like to see every train go out to Shady Grove on the weekends too, it isn't like people stop driving to the Metro at Shady Grove and leave their cars there on the weekend. (Too bad Shady Grove is the big O/D point out there at the very end, this would be much easier otherwise...)
What about this idea as a "compromise" to satisfy the various demands and to run the services at the times they are probably needed most?
Yellow Line runs to Fort Totten between 7 PM Friday and 6 PM (or closing) Sunday, terminates at Mount Vernon Square all other times (essentially becomes a weekend only service so it runs when bus services are reduced and waiting times are likely to be longest anyway)
All Red Lines runs out to Shady Grove weekdays, and if the money is available, also as the trackwork schedule allows from mid March to early September or October, there shouldn't be trains turning back at Grosvenor if the western end of the Red Line is seeing trains running in such a way that if every other train turned back at Grosvenor, the wait for a train further out along the line would be more than 15 minutes and the wait in the core would be more than 7.5 minutes (under normal, non-trackwork conditions)
Also, if the Yellow Line were cut back to MVS AND retimed with the Green Line so that the Yellow Line came out of the pocket 2 minutes after the Green Line S/B and arrived at LEP 2 minutes before the Green Line to essentially create a timed transfer for VA riders (which may have existed before, I've always felt as if the trains weren't evenly spaced along the common stretch from MVS to LEP before 2007 anyway), how would you feel?
I'm saddened that I stand to lose the Yellow Line Connection in the off peak hours. It was a solution to my problems to having to transfer trains in DC when making trips to/from Virginia. Having it end at Fort Totten was perfect...but if only it would arrive there before my connecting bus left...
If it's a luxury WMATA can't afford, then it makes sense to cut it as the Green Line would still be there. I'm just not sure how extravagant the savings would be. Would they save 1 or 2 trains a day by doing this? The extension isn't that much further.
Also, I must ask...are there really no late-night industrial services (Post office, UPS, factories, etc) in the DC Area? Aren't there workers that could use these services? Or is the DC Area made up solely of federal or other people working 9-5 that just go drinking at night? If that's the case, then slash the service...no need to be a drunk shuttle just for the "social good" of keeping drunks off the road.
I also want to clarify that SEPTA does have routes marketed as "OWLs" that actually do run on a consistent headway all night long, not "almost" as was referenced before. Are there certainly lines in DC that can get this designation that people can use to get home? Must every line in the Metrorail system run with the same service hours?
Quote from: Tritransit Area on February 15, 2011, 10:41:55 AM
Also, I must ask...are there really no late-night industrial services (Post office, UPS, factories, etc) in the DC Area? Aren't there workers that could use these services? Or is the DC Area made up solely of federal or other people working 9-5 that just go drinking at night? If that's the case, then slash the service...no need to be a drunk shuttle just for the "social good" of keeping drunks off the road.
A good number of what you describe inside the DC Area are in places that are Metro-inaccessible and where transit access overall is pretty spotty (Prince George's, distant corners of Alexandria and Fairfax, even parts of NE DC); there are some odd exceptions such as the USPS center near Rhode Island Ave and the FedEx center near New York Ave. Case in point, when I lived in Silver Spring I once had to get a package at the FedEx hub in Beltsville and the trip via transit (Red to Green to 89M or Connect-a-Ride) was nothing less of maddening.
The stereotype you speak of is because the people who are raising their voices are of that group: relatively young (early 20s-mid 30s), white collar, non-native, favoring rail over bus unless absolutely necessary, and often part of the "work hard/play hard" mentality in which something needs to ease the pain of government/non-profit drudgery. The aim of them is to make the DC area NYC/Chicago/San Francisco/Boston Jr. which isn't all that bad but rises the ire of those who were here long before who see a totally different DC. It's this standoff that is why anything with Metro is so sensitive and might play into why the system became something it was never intended to be.
On that note to add to the conversation, ACT's Ben Ross gives a good argument for keeping late-night weekend service above all considering how much the area has changed in 15 years (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9232/metros-future-rides-on-saturday-night). After reading that, I think a ton of the Columbia Heights ridership are Virginians that want a quasi-one seat ride to Adams Morgan since the walk from there is only nominally longer than the walk from Woodley Park.
QuoteI also want to clarify that SEPTA does have routes marketed as "OWLs" that actually do run on a consistent headway all night long, not "almost" as was referenced before. Are there certainly lines in DC that can get this designation that people can use to get home? Must every line in the Metrorail system run with the same service hours?
In DC proper it isn't that bad, the big problem is getting people from further out home since outside of the eastern leg of the Red Line (where an S or 70 to a Y or Q is doable) there are no real viable late-night bus alternatives.
Brandon, I think the Yellow extension requires an extra 2-3 trains, but factor in other costs such as labor, maintenance, wear and tear on equipment, etc., and the savings from taking as few as 6 or as many as 18 cars off the road for a few hours gets to be significant. The cost associated with adding just a single married pair to a trainset each day can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars on an annual basis, I forget the exact amount, but I recall it being around $700,000.
Jason, you describe part of the conflict. The other part of the conflict is that nearly all riders are oblivious to the fact that they are using a transit NETWORK, so they care passionately about their needs but could care less about anyone else. For example, the person who has to stand from Cleveland Park to Farragut North on an inbound Red Line probably doesn't even think to consider that if all the seats were removed or that if bench seating was installed, the ride for someone coming in from Shady Grove might be less comfortable or pleasant, even if the Cleveland Park riders experience is improved. It is a tradeoff, but people don't acknowledge that it exists. Also, because most maintenance takes place behind the scenes when the system is closed or in the railyards, most people don't value its importance. Ben Ross's argument is a poor one in my opinion. To say that commuters are not the future is ludicrous, they pay the regular fares that pump money into the system and trains aren't coming every 3 minutes at midnight for the drunks. Ridership at other times of day might have increased (admittedly, there is more capacity for additional passengers on reverse commutes or during off hours). But the reality is that ridership is still much lower between midnight and 3 AM than it is at other times of day. The system needs to be fixed up. It can't be open all the time. There is a huge budget gap. Something has to give.
I'd love to have all the data (and time) to do a full analysis on the actual ridership situation and come up with VIABLE ideas for how to change things to save money while not creating major inconveniences for riders. Because right now, lots of people are offering lots of opinions that aren't necessarily logical without the best data to back what they are saying.
What's frightening when it comes to situations such as this is that WMATA doesn't seem to learn it's lesson as it continues to expand, expand, expand...
Thanks for your thoughts, Oren. It's amazing to see how something that's seemingly so small can cost so much!
Quote from: Scrabbleship on February 15, 2011, 12:01:21 PM
On that note to add to the conversation, ACT's Ben Ross gives a good argument for keeping late-night weekend service above all considering how much the area has changed in 15 years (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9232/metros-future-rides-on-saturday-night). After reading that, I think a ton of the Columbia Heights ridership are Virginians that want a quasi-one seat ride to Adams Morgan since the walk from there is only nominally longer than the walk from Woodley Park.
The numbers are staggering. Now that I think about it, the area really has changed quite a bit since I was a young lad. Although my knowledge of the area was somewhat limited to the Silver Spring/Rockville area, I've witnessed how the areas have boomed with commercial and residential development in recent years. I'm still impressed when I visit Silver Spring, especially in the summer, and see how incredibly busy and how much of a family oriented destination it became.
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9279/what-does-metros-late-night-service-look-like/ (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9279/what-does-metros-late-night-service-look-like/)
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on February 11, 2011, 12:05:59 AM
Quote from: SchuminWeb on February 10, 2011, 11:31:23 PM
Agreed, that if Metro wants to discontinue late-night rail service, that they should have a regularly-scheduled bustitution to replace it overnight, which only stops at Metro stations.
Otherwise, Yellow service to Fort Totten would certainly be a loss. Whenever I Metro into Virginia, I often find myself taking the Yellow Line up to Fort Totten and then transferring to the Red Line to Glenmont from there. At least to me, it seems more efficient than transferring at Gallery Place, plus it's less crowded. It's been years since I've been to any of the extension stations save for U Street-Cardozo, but I appreciate being able to make the connection.
As for bustitution, I don't think with the current fleet and operations that it would be feasible in trying to move a crapload of people from the city to the burbs. You'd need tics on every line just to transport people plus where are people going to wait for the bus (let alone if they want to)
I'm with you on the bustitution. Late-night bar hoppers have no BUSINESS in their cars, and need an alternative way to get around safely after all that drinking. As far as logistics go, why not bring the Flxes out of ready reserve and supplement the existing bus lines with those, and put the artics on such bustitution routes if needed? I'd say the 5300s would be a natural for such activity...not sure if the NABI BRTs would hold up to rowdies though. LOL