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DC Metro Closes For Emergency Safety Inspection (nbcwashington.com)
McGruber writes with NBC's report that Washington, DC's Metrorail system has been completely shut down for at least 29 hours, so crews can check 600 underground jumper cables:
A problem with those jumper cables caused a fire at the McPherson Square station early Monday and was also the cause of a fatal smoke incident in January, 2015, that killed one person and injured others. The safety checks could have been delayed until the weekend or conducted at night over about six days, officials said. But if the system were kept open, a public announcement about the risk would have to be made. That would have put passengers, and Metro, in the awkward position of publicly acknowledging that it was operating despite being aware of a potentially deadly safety problem. Metro also would have been liable in the case of any crashes or calamities. The shutdown prompted the Washington Post to publish an editorial titled It's official: Metro is a national embarrassment."
Because...well, because it's the DC Metro and it's run by horrible people.
The only thing they seem to actually care about is how much money they can make, while pushing things to the absolute limit in terms of customer service and equipment.
I spent 6 years using the system to get back and forth from NoVA to downtown DC every day for work....and if I had to move back there now, I would be driving and paying for parking, absolutely no hesitation, even though it'd probably be at least twice the cost.
See https://twitter.com/unsuckdcme... for many, many examples.
Good for them! Over a first year since the first incident, they're finally getting around to it! What a responsible bunch!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
WMATA did an inspection of the jumper cables back in February 2015 and then replaced around 120 or so. They probably thought the problem was resolved at that point. Unfortunately, a new fire earlier this week revealed that the problem has not been resolved.
The biggest reason is that someone else was in charge last year.
After the first* incident government agency (NTSB?) ordered the cables inspected, and WMATA (the people who run the DC Metro) use their own crews to do the inspection, in the off-hours.
Now WMATA has a new leader, who's much more focused on safety (I think they said he came from the airline industry) ... and the incident happened again. So he said (or at least hinted at, I was driving while WTOP was broadcasting the press conference) that they can't trust the last inspection, and they're bringing in outside crews to do the inspection this time around.
* "first" only in terms of this problem. Two family friends died in the 2009 red line crash, which killed nine people.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I lived in DC for 5 years. Before, I lived in NYC for 5 years, and I'm now living in Chicago for 3, so I have some basis for comparison. The DC metro system is in an unusually high state of disrepair. Fixes don't happen until they're life threatening--and even then, they sometimes don't happen for a year.
While I was living in DC, at least 2 DC metro events made the national news: the first was the train collision that killed a few people because the conductors weren't coordinated, and the second was due to an escalator brake collapsing, leading to multiple injuries. I've also had to find alternative means of transportation due to 2 fires in the metro system. People aren't complaining that work is being done on the system. People are complaining that there is very little maintenance and that problems get so severe that a whole system shutdown is needed.
There have been a number of articles in the Post about the state of disrepair for the DC metro system. Many people have speculated that the system is corrupt. They certainly charge enough for the service. A 30 minute trip costs about $2.25, and a one hour trip costs about $5.00.
After having used the NYC, DC and Chicago systems extensively--and the BART system--I'd have to say that the DC system is a disaster. The problem is particularly acute for the DC area since the city is not designed to handle the amount of traffic its population would otherwise need.