Metro to use old railcars upon opening of the Silver Line

[Tritransit Area]

Apparently this is due to delays in production as well as the building of a new test track.  The line is set to open December 2013 or so, while the test track facility is set to open March 2014 (although WMATA would be able to start using it January of 2014).

I really think it would be a better idea to delay the opening of the line until there are enough extra cars for the service.  The existing fleet is strained as is...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/silver-line-to-use-old-rail-cars-initially/article/746116

[WMATAGMOAGH]

WMATA has historically opened segments before enough rolling stock was available, since they've had a chronic shortage for decades at this point.  Frankly, I'm not sure the lack of a dedicated test track before the Silver Line opens is a huge problem, with the right planning the Green Line near Greenbelt Yard can be made available for that purpose again (they just need to do whatever trackwork they need to do around there soon or wait awhile).  However, I'm not sure they can stretch the fleet to support the car assignments required for a full Silver Line operation in addition to running the current service without any new railcars.

[WayneNYC]

I can understand delaying the start of silver line service if they simply don't have enough railcars.  However, I don't think the start of service should be delayed because enough new cars aren't available

[Scrabbleship]

One notable WMATA Twitter critic says that since this is an MWAA (and Virginia) project that they can dictate when it opens even if it would produce a chronic car shortage. Their view is that it may mean no 8-car trains for a while and the possibility of 4-car trains on the Yellow.

Between this, the severe teething problems of Rush+, and the news that off-peak single-tracking and shutdowns will be the norm until decade's end, the last week has been very rough to Metro, hasn't it?

[WMATAGMOAGH]

I doubt any random tweeter has actually looked over all the contracts and hopefully some lawyers put in something to make sure that MWAA and Virginia are only responsible for making sure the infrastructure is ready for WMATA's use by a certain date, I can't imagine they wrote this thing without some sort of clause that makes it so WMATA doesn't sabotage its existing service to open a line it doesn't have trains to operate on said line.

Also, Rush Plus has been running for a whole 4 commutes, it is way too soon to start drawing conclusions on whether it has worked or not.  Considering lots of subway systems around the world have lines that branch or short turns (could you determine all the London Underground service patterns from just glancing at that system's map and without referring to other sources?), it seems reasonable to assume that once people start adjusting their commuting habits to take advantage of the services now being provided, things ought to get better, and only if they don't, will there be major problems.

The continuing single tracking is "news"?  Would you and these "twitter critics" rather they not single track and let the system fall apart instead?

[Scrabbleship]

Would you and these "twitter critics" rather they not single track and let the system fall apart instead?

I think shutting down whole chunks of lines for a couple of months as other cities have done would be a better move then to run a barely skeletal system outside of peak for nearly a decade. Your choice commuters would adjust to driving elsewhere and your non-choice commuters would adapt to shuttle bus service just fine. Problem is that these critics - who often resort to dystopia because WMATA as an agency seems very corrupt and mismanaged - often want attention and retweets and readers instead of forming a real pressure group.

The fact that the system started to fall apart not even 20 years after being built is very telling and makes me wonder if building it fast trumped building it right.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Sand Box John knows more about the inner workings of what I'm about to say, but generally anything that isn't well taken care of will start to fall apart.  It isn't unique to Metro.  Nothing lasts forever.  Also, before the recent critics showed up in town, the GM who everyone loves to hate, Richard White, began a campaign called Metro Matters explaining why WMATA needed a dedicated funding source and what would happen if money wasn't provided for system upkeep and maintenance, including fatal accidents.  Sadly, it took one for those who control the purse strings to make the financial commitments to try to catch up on the years of deferred maintenance.  A not so minor detail lots of people seem to be unaware of or conveniently forget when trying to explain how we got to where we are now.

I know bitching and moaning about long headways on the weekends is more fun than trying to come up with constructive ways to make things better, but WMATA and the media need to stop feeding these trolls and focus on making things palatable.  How come WMATA can't post a weekend advisory page like NYCT's that has alerts going far off in to the future?  How come WMATA only tweets departure times for weekend trackwork but doesn't post them on their website or in places that other people can find them?  (How come the current Dr. Gridlock doesn't get stuff done the way his predecessor used his bully pulpit to do and never post my comments about these ideas but continues to entertain the endless complaints about the trackwork?  It used to be that journalists knew their beat as well as the experts and could explain it using layman's terms, but those days seem to be gone, especially because traditional journalists have to keep up with self proclaimed expert bloggers and tweeters who don't have to maintain high standards.)

Shutting down whole chunks of the system would work if there were other lines nearby that could handle some of the load.  For example, what they are doing in Chicago is somewhat viable because the Red and Green lines aren't that far apart.  But managers generally don't want months long shutdowns because there are no guarantees the ridership will come back after a long disruption.  Look at the CTA Green Line (or SEPTA Regional Rail, though that was labor related).  Besides Railworks in Philly, Chicago and London, where else have they done such a closure on the main part of a line?  (In other words, the bustitutions to Lechmere on the Green Line in Boston aren't all that major compared to what you are proposing for DC.)  What might work is a major shutdown during the week between Christmas and New Year's, similar to what has happened before on the London Underground, but I wouldn't try it any other time.

[rideonrulez]

Between this, the severe teething problems of Rush+, and the news that off-peak single-tracking and shutdowns will be the norm until decade's end, the last week has been very rough to Metro, hasn't it?

and you know this how? I thought you moved out of the area? And your basing this off reading Twitter and other social media outlets? Yea that's a good reliable source.... I hope you are aware that you will mostly hear from the people that complain vs the people that benefit from Rush +

[WayneNYC]

I have to chime in and agree that it's way too soon for anyone to criticize Rush+.  I've given very basic info to a few people and one person even said that he hopes it proves to be a good idea and that we'll know over time.

[aznboy4305]

As with anything, you will hear much more of the negative feedback than you will of the positive feedback. There might be 10 negative opinions and 100 positive opinions on something...you will hear 10 complaints out of the 10 negative opinions, but only 5 compliments out of the 100 positive opinions.

Might be exaggerating a bit, but that is how people work...

[Tritransit Area]

That is very true - people are more likely to complain than to give compliments.  I do, however, wonder what the complaints about Rush + have been so far (outside of Blue Line riders that are less than thrilled with their "reduced" service).

Oren, thanks for mentioning Greenbelt, as I swore that's where cars were tested previously.  What is preventing WMATA from just starting to test the new cars at this facility while the new one is being built?  I wonder if the technology used on these cars is so radically different from the previous generation of railcars that they need an improved facility.

Also, I do wish that WMATA would take notes from fellow agencies about weekend service disruptions and such.  The NYC Weekender seems to be working quite well, and if something like what they did with the Red Line happens again, they should release the schedule for the trains that run every 24 mins as well as a schedule for the trains running in the core...and spread the trains out as well!  The amount of overcrowding reminded me of 8th Ave trains in NY during PM rush hour...

[Scrabbleship]

I think that WMATA is its own worst enemy at times and I sometimes wonder if they're aware of that what they do, good or bad, has consequences. Did they really think that announcing that off-peak trackwork will be the rule until the next decade or that the Silver Line will open without an increase in cars would get only positive feedback? Sometimes I wonder if they actually like coming off as the bad guy and bask in the negative attention and this stretches to individual people merely linked to WMATA. The Jackie Jeter "slavery" comment, Dan Stessel's condescending lines about sexual harassment, even the RAC Vice Chair's tweets that rising union costs aren't why the agency is near broke.

Also, I think the generally polarizing nature of the DC area adds flames to the fire. The constant flow and churn of people means there isn't much in the way of institutional memory to begin with then toss in other factors and it doesn't work well at all.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Did they really think that announcing that off-peak trackwork will be the rule until the next decade

Is there some other, better alternative?  The only ones I can think of are not doing the trackwork (not an option IMO) or not telling people what the reality is going to be from here on out (not as good as just being upfront about it IMO).  If I was running things, I'd say that WMATA should tell people that this is the new normal (as they have), but then I'd start picking out best practices from elsewhere to communicate to people effectively what that means for their trips, the way New York (among other places) does.

the Silver Line will open without an increase in cars would get only positive feedback

The article linked in the OP says WMATA plans, not WMATA has definitively decided.  It isn't set in stone, isn't a final decision, and it wouldn't be the first time WMATA has ever done that if that is what ends up happening for one reason or another. 

The constant flow and churn of people means there isn't much in the way of institutional memory to begin with then toss in other factors and it doesn't work well at all.

I know people like to claim there are no native Washingtonians, but that simply isn't true, and there is a long institutional memory when it comes to DC area transit and WMATA.  A number of the people on this board were born in the DC area or have lived in the DC area for most of their lives.  One of the problems in my opinion with social media and blogs is anyone can write whatever they want, and society as a whole likes the notion of "progress" and "change," usually on an instant timetable, and throws institutional memory to the gutter.  Only problem is that those who fail to learn their history are doomed to repeat it, and I've seen such things first hand in activities I've been involved with not related to transit.  I had suggested some ways to improve Friday night programming at my university's Hillel when I was a freshman that had NOT been tried at that point.  They didn't work, we quickly realized that, and we went back to what we had done previously until we could find a truly better solution to the issues we faced.  But my senior year, a freshman and another underclassman tried making some of the exact same changes that had been tried when they weren't on campus, and when I said we tried this, they didn't give a damn about my input and went ahead with the same results (except their egos didn't allow them to admit that their changes weren't working any better than they had when I had tried them, nor would they listen to my group's resistance to these ideas that had already failed and we didn't want imposed upon us).  In this example, if these underclassmen wanted to listen to the institutional memory that existed (often rare to have the opportunity on a college campus), they could have devoted their efforts to things that might have worked that had not been tried before and failed.  Bringing this back to DC area transportation, the beauty of the internet is that people can learn a lot about all sorts of topics, if they choose to.  Pardon me for sounding a bit elitist, but there are quite a few established members of the DC area transit community whose historical and technical knowledge, when consolidated, could probably answer any question put forward to them about transportation in this area.  Many of the people who I would put that group post and read this board.  I've learned a lot from the transit professionals on this board who have explained technical considerations I have been unaware of and others here who have just shared historical aspects to how things have worked and evolved over the years.  Perhaps instead of just blasting Metro and making up all sorts of wild theories about how Metro works (i.e. how we got to the point of manual door openings on Metrorail for example), they should take some time to read, learn, ask questions, and then try to go out and change the world with the institutional history in their back pockets, so to speak,  Because despite what you claim, that institutional memory DOES exist, and they (or you) could find it if it is sought out.  (And the institutional memory rant goes to the traditional media as well, not just the tweeters and bloggers, it astounds me how little the recent DC area transit beat reporters seem to know their subject matter.)

Anyone can tweet or blog and bitch and moan about their commute.  Others have pointed out that those with negative experiences tend to complain while those who are satisfied usually don't publicly express that satisfaction in the same way.  If you and these social media personalities really want to fix WMATA, why not making some constructive suggestions about how to fix things?

[WayneNYC]

That is very true - people are more likely to complain than to give compliments.  I do, however, wonder what the complaints about Rush + have been so far (outside of Blue Line riders that are less than thrilled with their "reduced" service).

Oren, thanks for mentioning Greenbelt, as I swore that's where cars were tested previously.  What is preventing WMATA from just starting to test the new cars at this facility while the new one is being built?  I wonder if the technology used on these cars is so radically different from the previous generation of railcars that they need an improved facility.

Also, I do wish that WMATA would take notes from fellow agencies about weekend service disruptions and such.  The NYC Weekender seems to be working quite well, and if something like what they did with the Red Line happens again, they should release the schedule for the trains that run every 24 mins as well as a schedule for the trains running in the core...and spread the trains out as well!  The amount of overcrowding reminded me of 8th Ave trains in NY during PM rush hour...

Agreed.  People in general are very quick to complain.  Also, folks have gotten so self-absorbed that they seem to be incapable of seeing the benefits of service changes that benefit the masses.  Yes, it's understandable that the few on the short end of the deal wouldn't be too happy, but everyone can't get their way.  I really hope folks will give Rush+ (and other things) a fair chance.   

One of the things I love about NYCTA's subway system is the flexibility.  This is why they can shut down part of a trunk line over night.  It worked well because along the trunk lines in Manhattan, there's always an alternate route nearby.  Even when they have the weekend closings on the branhes in the outer boroughs, the TA will put together some extensive bus shuttle operations.  One of my favorites was the E. 180th St to 149th-Mott operation.  They operated "local" and "express" bus shuttles.  The expresses actually used the highway for a nice quick ride.

[Tritransit Area]

I went on a quick trip to DC yesterday and took advantage of the Rush + service to get to Virginia from Gallery Place.  Things didn't seem to bad and the Yellow Line trains ran VERY frequently.  It helps that there happened to be a Yellow Line that turned around in front of a train heading to Franconia from Greenbelt, which pretty much gave us an empty train from Mt. Vernon Square to go to Virginia.

I was a bit surprised to see how the train essentially emptied out at Pentagon station, but that makes sense with all of the commuter buses that serve this the transit center there.

I wonder if, in the future during rush hour, trains from Mt. Vernon Square could head to Franconia-Springfield and trains from Greenbelt could head to Huntington. Of course, the real test won't be until this fall, when schools go back in session and people are back to work after their summer vacations.