WMATA Red Line Short Turns: A Look at the Numbers -- Justified or Not?

[WMATAGMOAGH]

After a post on Subchat (http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=952189) about the notion that a rider at Glenmont only gets half as much service, I posted a reply explaining why the Red Line turnbacks, especially on the Glenmont side, are justified in my opinion.  I since did some analysis using the ridership data posted on WMATA's website, which is below.  So take a look at the numbers and make a vote, and feel free to explain it further and discuss in this thread.  Just remember one thing:  WMATA has a finite number of railcars due to a car shortage dating back to 1981 or so, so it is impossible to maintain the current 3 minute rush hour headway on the Red Line while having every train run the full route or without reducing service on one of the other 4 lines.

Here are the totals for each Red Line station ranked in order from most boardings to fewest:

Station Name    Ridership
Union Station    34465
Metro Center    30569
Gallery Place    25747
Farragut North    25311
Dupont Circle    23561
Shady Grove    14107
Silver Spring    14077
Bethesda    10730
Judiciary Square    10369
Friendship Heights    9596
Woodley Park    8292
Tenleytown    7290
Van Ness    7276
Fort Totten    7198
Brookland    7158
Takoma    6811
Rhode Island Avenue    6121
Glenmont    5996
Grosvenor    5948
Medical Center    5627
New York Avenue    5229
Rockville    4880
Cleveland Park    4807
Wheaton    4653
Twinbrook    4628
White Flint    4096
Forest Glen    2514
TOTAL    297056

For the purpose of this analysis, I've defined "downtown" as being the stations from New York Avenue through Dupont Circle inclusive.  These 7 stations account for 52.26% of the daily weekday boardings on the Red Line.  The busiest station outside of downtown is Shady Grove, the 6th busiest on the line out of the 27 stations.  With 30 fewer boardings than Shady Grove, Silver Spring is ranked 7th.  Glenmont is ranked 18th, Wheaton is ranked 24th, and Forest Glen has the fewest boardings out of any station on the entire line.  For comparison purposes, Twinbrook and White Flint rank 25th and 26th, and Rockville is 22nd.

The Glenmont to Forest Glen section of the line inclusive accounts for 4.43% of station boardings.  Shady Grove to White Flint inclusive accounts for nearly double that amount, 9.33%.  Silver Spring to Rhode Island Avenue inclusive accounts for 13.92% and Woodley Park to Grosvenor accounts for 20.05%.  As I said earlier, New York Avenue to Dupont Circle accounts for 52.26%.  Looking at larger segments of the line, the western side of the Red Line (Woodley Park to Shady Grove inclusive) accounts for 29.38% of the boardings, while the eastern side only accounts for 18.35%, meaning that the western side is busier than the eastern side.

I can provide other numbers on request.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Here is the rationale for my answer to this question:

It is clear to me from the data above that the stations from Glenmont to Forest Glen inclusive are among the least used on the entire line.  There are about twice as many boardings from Grosvenor to Woodley Park inclusive as there are from Shady Grove to White Flint inclusive, and there are about three times as many boardings between Silver Spring and Rhode Island Avenue inclusive as there are between Glenmont and Forest Glen inclusive.  One could go so far as to make the argument that based solely on ridership numbers, only every THIRD train should continue beyond Silver Spring to Glenmont.  So as long as the current car shortage exists, short turning half the trains is justified in my opinion and the practice should be continued.  Also, based on the fact that ridership on the Shady Grove side is higher, that side should get its short turn trains eliminated before the Glenmont side, especially because Shady Grove is the busiest station outside of downtown and the busiest station by far (which is the second busiest station to be beyond the short turn terminals, doesn't even have half as many riders as Shady Grove does) to be beyond the point where the short turns end their runs.

[79MetroExtraMD]

The turnbacks at Grosvenor and Silver Spring should still go through since Shady Grove and Glenmont can't handle any added capacity without affecting headways. You'd have a train hold at Wheaton to have a train from Glenmont leave in order to have that track clear or hold a train just outside of Shady Grove to let a train come out of Shady Grove causing delays along the line for the other trains. Now, given if Shady Grove and Glenmont were built with a third track in mind, there might be some justification for running more trains along the full line. One thing I wish Metro could do is to find some way to accommodate the crush loads at the station during rush hour as it gets to be like Union Station at times.

[Scrabbleship]

I say give the Shady Grove end more service. Though White Flint, Twinbrook, and Rockville all have low-ish numbers (the first two get hurt by having just about all housing near the station in bad spots for station access), they have more of a case than a station whose bus boardings might exceed its rail boardings (Wheaton) and the big accident of Metro (Forest Glen).

What I wonder more is why Metro never did anything to mitigate this car shortage if it's gone on the better part of 30 years. Besides money, is there a viable reason why the 2000's or 4000's didn't fix the shortage? Or was it typical Metro underplanning and Metro's mindset didn't fix it?

[Tritransit Area]

Hmm.  Wasn't there a proposal to run all trains to Shady Grove?  I actually thought that was happening right now.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

The turnbacks at Grosvenor and Silver Spring should still go through since Shady Grove and Glenmont can't handle any added capacity without affecting headways. You'd have a train hold at Wheaton to have a train from Glenmont leave in order to have that track clear or hold a train just outside of Shady Grove to let a train come out of Shady Grove causing delays along the line for the other trains. Now, given if Shady Grove and Glenmont were built with a third track in mind, there might be some justification for running more trains along the full line. One thing I wish Metro could do is to find some way to accommodate the crush loads at the station during rush hour as it gets to be like Union Station at times.

There is no issue with turning capacity at either station, I can assure you that is not an issue in any way.  Silver Spring used to turn a train every 3 minutes for nearly 15 years.

I say give the Shady Grove end more service. Though White Flint, Twinbrook, and Rockville all have low-ish numbers (the first two get hurt by having just about all housing near the station in bad spots for station access), they have more of a case than a station whose bus boardings might exceed its rail boardings (Wheaton) and the big accident of Metro (Forest Glen).

What I wonder more is why Metro never did anything to mitigate this car shortage if it's gone on the better part of 30 years. Besides money, is there a viable reason why the 2000's or 4000's didn't fix the shortage? Or was it typical Metro underplanning and Metro's mindset didn't fix it?

White Flint's parking lot used to be much larger, before that new Marriott was constructed.  Why is Forest Glen the big accident of Metro?  Seems like a reasonable location for a station, even though it won't be the busiest on the system, I don't think anyone thought it ever would be.

You should get MCPL's copy of Story of Metro and read it before you move out of the county, it would explain a lot of things like this for you.  Many station openings went ahead when the stations were ready, even though cars weren't necessarily available, by shuffling things around.  For awhile, they managed to open at least one new station a year for several years straight in the late 70s and early 80s.  System growth and usage has also not necessarily occurred at the projected rates, which is the nature of projections, they aren't always correct. 

Hmm.  Wasn't there a proposal to run all trains to Shady Grove?  I actually thought that was happening right now.

There was a proposal, since the only time they now end at Grosvenor is rush hours.  Not sure it was actually implemented but now that you mention it, I think it was.  Even so, my questions still stand for discussion.

[Sand Box John]

Scrabbleship
What I wonder more is why Metro never did anything to mitigate this car shortage if it's gone on the better part of 30 years. Besides money, is there a viable reason why the 2000's or 4000's didn't fix the shortage? Or was it typical Metro underplanning and Metro's mindset didn't fix it?

At the time the shortage became evident to WMATA, the staff discovered they were building out the railroad faster then they were procuring rolling stock to run on it. The reason why Yellow line trains terminate at Huntington and Mount Vernon Square instead Springfield-Franconia and Greenbelt as originally planed is because when the C Route south of National Airport was ready to open it was discovered there wasn't enough rolling stock to extend the Blue line to Huntington. WMATA did a rolling stock utilization analysis and determined they could extend the recently opened Yellow line from National Airport to Huntington and still have enough rolling stock to maintain service levels on the rest of the system.

It is important to note, during the 1980 boardings on most of the lines at most times of the day were not great enough to justify running 8 car trains based on the headways they running. Prior to the opening of Huntington WMATA regularly ran 8 car trains at times when there was demand. The headways being run at that time were nearly third longer then what they are today.

The railroad continued to be built out faster then the 2, 3 and 4 cars could be delivered. As the railroad neared completion things started getting crowded. The 5k cars were ordered from CAF-AAI. Another little wrinkle mucked up the works when the 1k car were rehabilitated and upgraded to AC traction. Though cheaper to maintain then DC traction hardware, the AC traction hardware along with their heavier weight and other bells and whistles added to the cars requires more megawatts of power to operate then did the lighter DC traction equipped cars. The 5 and 6k cars were even heavier. In order to accommodate this new generation of heavier and more power hungry rolling stock WMATA began a program to upgrade their traction power distribution system that is still underway today.

WMATA never planed their rolling stock procurement schedule based on the minimum headway design specification (90 seconds). During a short period of time in the late 1970s and early 1980s WMATA had enough rolling stack to run the railroad at those minimum headways. One of the reasons why you don't see minimum headways today is because not all of the routes and lines generate boardings evenly and heavily enough to justify them and those that do barely have the infrastructure in the stations to move passengers into and out of the stations with trains running at the headways that are run today.

It is my opinion as of this date that solving the rolling stock shortage will not solve the over all crowding problem. The solution will require a multi faceted approach that will include infrastructure upgraded both visible and not visible. Increase in the infrastructure needed for passenger entry and egress at stations, megawatt increases to the traction power distribution system, And probably the most radical change of all, adopting the concept of 4 door per side cars to allow faster boarding and discharging of passengers, making it possible to shorten dwell times to achieve 90 second headway.

[Tritransit Area]

While short turning Red Line trains can be annoying, it does help to maintain frequent service along the core corridor of the line.

If you are mad that your train isn't going to Wheaton (eep, Glenmont) and you don't want to wait a few minutes for the next one for some reason, just hop one of the Montgomery Georgia Ave Buses (heading North - don't take that 70/71/79!!!!!) to go up the street to those stations.  I'd wonder why one would do that, but meh.

Sometimes having all trains (and buses) serving the entire line the entire time can be detrimental to the reliability of the service, and can "underserve" certain portions of the route while "overserving" others.  Just look at the Qs (lol, that'll take some getting used to) for reference.

[NewFlyer9736BCT]

I can't really speak for the Glenmont side, but I would like to see more trains making it up to Shady Grove during rush hour.