I wish Metro had had the foresight to imitate New York, with it’s dual tracks. I’ve written about our subway several times lately, as I’ve been using it more. And every time, I find something else incredibly annoying.
It’s so poorly run. It’s beautiful, and expensively designed, but there’s little maintenance, poorly trained employees, and seemingly no contingency plans for any situation.
Last night I waited nearly 40 minutes at the Gallery Place station waiting for a Yellow line train to go home. The electronic signs in the station notified of a delay on the Green/Yellow line. (One other major design flaw is that the Yellow line is running on the same tracks as the Green; the Blue runs with the Orange, so they’re really not separate lines and an delay is automatically doubled.) Only one side of that electronic sign worked, people on the other side had no clue what was happening.
Finally, Green line trains started to come through, one after another, but not a Yellow line train.
I believe the problem was a breakdown a few stations down the line. If Metro had two sets of tracks, they could have routed trains AROUND the breakdown. Instead, the single track was blocked and the system ground to a halt.
The same problem crops up nearly every day, it seems. Yesterday morning a passenger’s health problem stopped the Red line during rush hour. No way to get around a stopped train.
Obviously, it’s too late to add second rails to the system. But Metro MUST come up with some expedited methods of getting the rails clear and the trains moving. The system is so poorly run — it took me nearly an hour to get home last night. If I had driven in, it would have taken me 10 minutes. Metro is saving no one any time or money, and forcing people to their cars in a city with some of the worst traffic in the nation.
Is this any way to run a railroad?
