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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."
If the first deadly accident with these jumper cables happened in January of last year, why did they wait so long to close down to inspect?
In related news, I-94 outside of Milwaukee will be shut down late Friday night to allow bridge construction to continue. Seriously though, infrastructure breaks down and needs major repairs from time to time, so why is this news to the point of causing the Washington Post to whine about some repairs as a "national embarrassment." (Believe me - no one outside of DC cares one bit about this story.)
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.'"
Or rather, the culture that allowed this to happen.
Last January, an electrical fire caused by problems in feeder wires that provide power to the rails killed someone. The NTSB ordered DC Metro to inspect ALL such feeder wires.
Last Monday, another electrical fire was caused by a problem in feeder wires - wires that were apparently "inspected" and "passed" just a few months ago.
In other words, the previous inspections were falsified. In US Navy parlance, they were "gundecked".
My guess is a few mid-level managers and quite a bit of workers who did the earlier "inspections" are about to be fired - after EVERYONE spends 24 hours not getting paid overtime fixing the problems they previously worked hard to hide.
FWIW, the new director of DC Metro - Paul Wiedefeld - came from running BWI airport, which he once shut down for an entire day due to a crappy safety record.
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.
Nautical miles. I assume...
Anyhow, at first I thought that it'd be okay just to let some of the DC folks die in accidents, there's a lot of politicians there and many of them are straight up evil. But, then I thought more about it and, having been on the metro in DC, I know no politicians are going to be impacted by this at all. So, only some mostly-good people would be at risk and it's probably best to shut it down.
Mostly-good is, of course, in comparison to the above mentioned politicians.
I'm actually not surprised that the terrorists don't take out Congress. If they did, some of us might not mind that much and others would actively cheer. (See approval ratings for more accurate statistics.) It'd be one way to get rid of the incumbents who, oddly, get reelected even though they've often managed to acquire rather low approval ratings.
Note: Some of the above is meant as sarcasm and/or humor and should not be taken seriously. Which parts are which is an exercise best left to the reader.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
There is a serious incident on Monday, one of a number that have been raising concern. The metro decides to shut down the system to do a major safety inspection. That is somehow bad?
The summary suggests that they could have waited until the weekend, which is true or done it at night over a longer period of time, which is also true. Of course, if another incident had occurred in either of those time frames and lives were lost, what then?
Have we really gotten to the point in the US that no matter what the authorities do, even with matters of safety, it is always bad?
That's 'cause we can afford cars. No, seriously. We don't rely on mass transit - it's a cultural thing. Look at the percentages and socio-economic class of people who use the (limited) mass transit available.
Also, I have to wonder if you're stupid or just ignorant - and, if the latter, it is willfully so? Seriously. The US is a rather diverse and large place. I notice you compared the mass transit of the US to just cities in other countries - which demonstrates an even greater willingness to bias your statements.
I'd also wonder why you'd lie... You've absolutely, zero chance, not seen all of the public transit in the US. So, I doubt you were astonished by such a thing as you've not seen it.
Which leads me to this... You're almost certainly, by deduction, a liar - and you've probably not been to any of the places you seem to claim you've been and that includes the places you're contrasting with. It's telling, in some ways, that you used Moscow - I've been to Moscow and been on public transit there (you'll need to narrow down which transit(s) you speak of) and am inclined to think you've never actually been.
So, you're probably actually from the US. Your writing style, the grammar and verbiage used, indicate that you're really from the US. That means you probably don't own a passport and haven't been out of the US in your life. I'm not sure why you'd lie - except to troll. However, trolls are my source of amusement at times - more so when I'm bored, and it's fun to pick apart the idiocy they spout for their own amusement. Thank you for the fun game. I appreciated it and the folks who read the response may also be aware of the idiocies in your post.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Nautical miles. I assume...
No, nautical miles are more commonly known as knots, so the appropriate abbreviation is "km". I see it all the time, especially in Europe, where they use km for almost everything.
This is just "maintenance theater". This problem has been festering for years, and then all of the sudden they decide it is a "crisis" and they need to shutdown the entire system for a full day in the middle of a work week. This maintenance could have easily been done during regular daily shutdowns from midnight to 5am. Or it could have been done on a weekend. Or they could have done it one line at a time, so that there would be enough buses/taxies/ubers to handle the displaced commuters.
The only reason they did a full system shutdown is to draw attention to themselves, and give the public the perception that they are underfunded and need more subsidies.