Proposed FY2012 Cuts: Weekend late-night service, extended Red/Yellow Lines

[Tritransit Area]

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!

[Tritransit Area]

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. 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.

[Scrabbleship]

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9279/what-does-metros-late-night-service-look-like/

[Flxible]

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