Category Archives: Metro

A day in the life of Metro

Metro’s definitely seen better days. The Washington Post had a lengthy piece in Sunday’s edition documenting the massive problems facing the system: aging infrastructure, missing leadership, a broken safety culture, amongst others. Metro’s been trimming the fat to balance budgets for a while, and it now looks like they’ve been cutting into the bone and impeding the system’s ability to function. WTOP notes that several internal and external candidates for the soon-to-be vacant General Manager position have turned it down.

At the same time, the Post managed to document the role the system plays in the daily lives of those living and working in DC.

At the same time, one of WMATA’s new Federally-appointed board members, Marcel Acosta, is asking for input from riders over at Greater Greater Washington. In looking at some of the responses in the comments, you can’t help but notice people speaking out about how Metro enables car-free lifestyles; how crucial good transit service is to urban life.

Station cleaning – the end product

Today’s snow storm means Metro’s been limited to their underground service map only. Given that buses are out of commission, this low level of service is the only real way to get around town. It also means there’s plenty of time to spend in the stations waiting for trains.

So, while waiting at Potomac Avenue, I couldn’t help but snap a few pictures of the newly cleaned and whitewashed vaults, all part of Metro’s earlier noted station enhancement program. For Potomac Ave in particular, the mid-way photos already showed a huge improvement over the dirty and grimy concrete vaults. Given that Potomac Ave was one of the stations Metro painted years ago to improve light levels, the last step was to essentially whitewash the station vaults to complete the cleaning process, and then light those vaults up by replacing all the burnt-out light bulbs.

The difference is stark. Today:

Whitewashed and illuminated vaults at Potomac Ave

The mid-way progress:

Steam cleaning in progress at Potomac Ave

And the original, dirty station:

Dirty station vaults before cleaning

For a synopsis of the station enhancement process, check out this WaPo article.

Metro snow operations

Given the heavy (and ongoing) snowfall, Metro is only operating rail service in select underground locations, in order to prevent trains from getting stranded as accumulating snow makes it difficult to maintain contact with the third rail, and also to use existing tunnels to keep rail cars dry and operable, rather than buried in snow and exposed to the elements in Metro’s rail yards.

The adjusted service map looks like this:

Metro's snow map. Image from WMATA.

Riding the trains today, the service is essentially single-tracking in the underground portions of the system. The segments of each open line in the middle have both tracks open, with each line essentially having two trains to cover the entire length of a line – they shuttle back and forth on a single track, passing each other on the double-tracked stretch in the middle.

Waits for the trains are long, and as is usual during single tracking operations, the PIDS aren’t all that reliable for train arrival times:

PID at U St, during snowpocalypse

In the single-tracked areas, the extra track is being used for train storage so that there are rail cars ready to enter service as soon as tracks are cleared:

Storage train riding out the storm at U St.

Metro did a good job of getting the system up and running again after the December 19th storm, opting to prepare the entire system for Monday’s rush rather than restore service immediately. They’ll likely do the same this time around.

Lighting, again

I had a chance to stop though Judiciary Sq’s north mezzanine today, the one with the new lighting scheme. My concern from the initial photos was that the lighting along the escalators, where the coffered vault has less headroom, requiring direct overhead light rather than the indirect lighting in the rest of the system, was too much of a departure from one of Metro’s distinct design elements.

New mezzanine lighting. Note the difference between the indirect fixtures in the middle and the direct ones over the escalators. CC image from flickr.

The white lines from those lights take away from the pattern of the coffers, despite the increased lighting in the area (which is substantial).

Direct light fixture detail. Photo of the author.

Increased light near escalators. Note the birghtness of the walls.

Increased light near escalators. Note the brightness of the walls. Photo of the author.

The increased illumination does indeed make a big difference, particularly in seeing where to walk. However, might there be another solution to illuminate the walkways without some of the awkward, direct light fixtures. Several of the new and newly renovated stations make use of LED lights embedded in stairway handrails. These lights, directed downward, illuminate the floor to ease navigation without the need for overhead fixtures.

LED handrail lights, Navy Yard station. Photo of the author.

In anticipation of the baseball crowds for Nationals Park, Metro expanded the Navy Yard station’s Half Street entrance to include an elevator and a new staircase from the mezzanine to the platform, which uses the LED handrail lights to illuminate the stairs.

Might this type of fixture be integrated into the brass handrails in Metro mezzanines? While these lights might not have much range, they wouldn’t need much – the new, hanging indirect lights in the Judiciary Sq mezzanine work just fine with enough overhead clearance.

Let there be light

Following up on recent discussion of Metro’s lighting, it’s important to understand how much the surface that’s to be illuminated matters in Metro’s indirect lighting scheme. Earlier, I noted that Metro is currently going though a process of deep-cleaning several stations in the system – replacing light bulbs, cleaning the walls, etc. The Washington Post had a great article in March on the process for each station:

Blasts of steam from the hoses they carry scour dust from train brakes and concrete away from the panels. Sensitive equipment, including pylons on the platform, is protected from the spray, but the station is warm and misty.

Once the station is cleaned, the crew will re-bronze rails, paint kiosks and repair tile, among other tasks.

A station gets enhanced about every three and a half years. The crews do two dozen stations a year, focusing on indoor stations during cold weather.

“We’ve got it down to a science,” says Tom Morrison, Metro’s superintendent of contract maintenance and station enhancement. The job begins with a lot of prep work after the Red Line shuts down at midnight. Power to the third rail must be cut and station equipment protected.

The crew must wrap up about 4 a.m. The workers will need to be gone, the equipment stored at the end of the platform or hauled away and the station dry by the time passengers arrive and trains start running at 5 a.m.

It’s not easy adjusting to the schedule — five overnights in a station and two off days trying to have a real life — but workers at least get a direct view of what they’ve accomplished. “We can see the before and after,” says craft supervisor Andre Jordan.

Steam cleaning the walls makes a huge difference. This process is currently underway at my nearest station, Potomac Avenue. Dr. Gridlock noted earlier in the year each of the stations scheduled for a “station enhancement,” as Metro describes the process:

Major Enhancements: Dunn Loring, East Falls Church, Eisenhower Avenue, Forest Glen, Medical Center, Potomac Avenue, Twinbrook, Wheaton, White Flint, U Street, Vienna, West Falls Church.

Mini Enhancements: Ballston, Bethesda, Brookland, Court House, Foggy Bottom, Franconia-Springfield, Friendship Heights, Rockville, Shady Grove, Smithsonian, Virginia Square, Woodley Park.

The majors and the minis involve different types of work. A major takes about three months. A mini takes about 25 percent less time. I watched some of the overnight work for a “major” at Cleveland Park. During the hours the station was closed, crews on lifts power washed the station’s concrete ceiling and walls. I could see the before and after, and the difference was remarkable as they removed the tunnel dust that gathers in the station.

To get an idea of how much dirt and grime accumulates over the years, have a look at the process in action:

Potomac Ave deep cleaning, Dec 2009

Metro initially ‘painted’ several stations in order to lighten them up a bit – but the painted surfaces don’t quite have the same warm feeling that the original concrete does. They also show the dirt and grime more than their concrete counterparts.

Compare, side by side, the clean side of the station to the uncleaned one:

It’s not just the grime accumulating on the lower portions of the vault – there’s a huge difference in the dirt on the bottom edges of the coffers – that’s not just shadow (despite my crappy camera).

Warming up Metro

Metro’s signature indirect lighting scheme is getting a little brighter. Over at GGW, Matt Johnson notes upgrades to the Judiciary Sq Station mezzanine as a means of better illuminating the darker areas of one of the darker stations.

Judiciary Sq Station

I haven’t yet checked out the new mezzanine lighting in person, but Matt’s photo raises a couple of questions and concerns about Metro’s design legacy. One is a concern that Metro’s new lighting is too cold – meaning, the color temperature of the resulting environment is cold, while Metro’s original design with the concrete, brass, tile, and carpet was very warm.

Conversely, Metro’s most recent design changes seem to get colder and colder. It’s hard to judge these new lights by just a photo, but this isn’t the only case. In my post on Metro’s 7000 series designs (here and at GGW), Laurence Auerbach noted in the comments about Metro’s recent trends towards cooler lighting schemes:

I’ve ridden in the 7000 series design prototype, and it was a truly oppressive experience. A big problem is the color of the walls, partitions, and seat backs. In the old cars it is a warm beige-white that softens the fluorescent lighting. In the new cars the wall color is a cool grey-white that makes the fluorescent lighting even flatter and harsher than it normally is.
…
My favorite Metro car design is the 6000 series (the most recent), even though I prefer the original orange seat colors. The 6000 series has the best combination of efficient layout, comfortable style, quiet operation, and high quality technical/mechanical features. Metro should build on that success; it should only change the floor material to make it easier to maintain.

The change in visual experience from the original, orange color scheme is indeed striking:

The newer cars, with the white walls, are indeed much brighter. However, when compared to cars without the red carpet flooring, the color experience is much more harsh:

Wondering out loud – could Metro do hard flooring in a red-ish color that’s true to the original train design?

Any Colour You Like

From mindgutter on flickr

(Post title with apologies to Pink Floyd)

Matt Johnson, over at Track Twenty-Nine, noted that with MARTA’s official conversion over to a color-based naming system for their rail system, more than half of America’s rapid transit systems (including Metro) use a color-based system.

Starting in 1965, Boston started referring to lines by color. When Washington’s system opened in 1976, line colors indicated the route of trains. Cleveland renamed their lines to colors two years later, in 1978. When Los Angeles’ rail system started opening, lines were referred to by colors – the first heavy rail line opened in 1993, the same year that Chicago started calling trains Red, Orange, and so on. Baltimore renamed transit lines after colors around 2002. Finally, just last month, Atlanta added their Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue lines to America’s transit repertoire.

There are still 6 systems that don’t use colors to identify lines by names. However, four do differentiate lines using different colors on a map: BART, NYC Subway, PATH, and SEPTA. Miami and PATCO each only operate one heavy rail line, so color is not an issue.

In any transit system, the diagrammatic understanding of the system (often represented by the system map) is a vital element in the user’s understanding of where they are. Colors offer an intuitive means of understanding this – as evidenced by the numerous systems using color identifiers for their maps, even if not in their overall nomenclature systems.

There are a couple of shortcomings in using color as the main identifier of lines and services, however. One is the limited potential for expansion – Chicago has the most lines of any system using colors (8 – Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Green, Pink, Brown, Purple), and there aren’t a whole lot of extra options for system expansion. Silver? Gold? But would that be too similar to Yellow?

That leads to the other limitation – differentiation between the lines depends solely on color, and when those differences are not evident enough (i.e. differentiating Yellow from Gold, or for a person who is colorblind), you need some sort of alternative. Metro accomplishes this with the use of words on the trains – spelling out the color on the front LEDs, as well as the destination on the side LEDs and a two-letter color abbreviation on the PIDs.

It’s also worth noting that many airports used to have color-based naming systems, but have switched to letters and numbers for their terminals and concourses. Growing up in Minneapolis, MSP Airport used to name their concourses with colors, but switched to letters. The letter/number provides an easier identifier to the colorblind and those that are unfamiliar with English.

Eventually, converting to a system where color is a secondary identifier, especially as DC adds more lines, will be necessary. Particularly if DC adds track connections that enable more services, equating a line of track with the service that it operates on is limiting. Eventually, DC should consider changing to a naming system similar to that of Paris – where the Metro lines are all assigned numbers and colors, while the regional RER lines all have letters and colors, with numbered suffixes for branch lines in the suburbs. Jarrett Walker delves into the details of the Parisian system:

Actually, there are FOUR tiers of information here in a clever hierarchy, all designed to ensure that you don’t have to learn more information that you need to do what you’re going to do:

A Métro route number signifies a simple, frequent line that doesn’t require you to learn much more, apart from riding it in the correct direction.

An RER route letter such as Line A identifies the common RER segment across the core of Paris and invites you to use it exactly as if it were any other metro line, without caring about its branches.

Odd vs. even numbered branch numbers on the RER indicate different directions on the common segment. On Line A, for example, odd-numbered branches are all in the west, even numbered ones in the east, so as you get to know the service, the branch number tells you which way the train is going on the central segment. Even if you’re not riding onto a specific branch, this can be useful, as redundant ‘confirming’ information, to assure you that you’re riding in the correct direction. This is important as it’s very easy to lose your sense of north (if you ever had one) in the warrens of underground stations.

Finally, the individual branch numbers are needed ONLY if you’re headed for a specific suburb beyond the branch point, such as Marne-la-Vallée.

The principle is that this is a progression from simple to complex. The point of this hierarchy is not to lead customers all the way through, but exactly the opposite: to enable them to “get off,” ignore the remaining layers, as soon as they have the information they need.

Eventually, as DC aims to better integrate the commuter rail systems and further expands Metro, integrating brands and fare structures with Metro, a re-organization of the entire naming system might be in order. With Silver and Purple lines on the way, there aren’t a lot of other options left. When David at GGW looked at turning DC’s commuter rail lines into a sort of express Metro system, his naming system ran head up against the limitations (lime? teal?) of the color-based systems.

Hopefully, we’ll eventually have to deal with this issue. It’ll mean that we’ve expanded and integrated our systems beyond what we have today. More immediately, DC’s streetcar system presents some nomenclature challenges as well – and that will be a nice problem to have.

Transit Expansion

Streetcars

We’ve got more details on DC’s streetcar plans. BeyondDC has more details on the plans (at BDC/GGW), and Yonah Freemark chimes in with comments at the transport politic.

And, just for fun, this is a great reason to link to the old map of DC’s streetcar system circa 1958 (matching many of DDOT’s historical photos).

Metro Extensions

In other transit expansion news, Prince George’s County is working on re-doing their transportation plan. One of the ideas thrown out so far is an extension of the Green Line from Greenbelt through to Laurel:

The county also wants the Green Line extended from Greenbelt to Fort Meade by way of Beltsville and Laurel. The stops could include Konterra, a massive mixed-use development underway at the eastern end of the ICC.

GGW’s summary on these developments also links back to previous posts on the plan’s highway and transit components. Dave Murphy, however, takes the Green Line extension idea and improves upon it – by diverting the Metro extension away from the CSX/MARC Camden line tracks though Fort Meade (which is already a huge employment center and set to grow even more with various BRAC relocations) before terminating at Odenton – also connecting with the MARC Penn Line.

The idea of serving Fort Meade is good – it needs more transit service to meet growing demand. Likewise, the idea of connecting both MARC lines together through Fort Meade is also good. The problem, however, is that Metro isn’t the best tool to accomplish this task. It’s the most expensive mode of transit we have in this region – and should be reserved for the highest capacity, highest potential routes.

The desire to extend Metro rather than invest in other modes is understandable – everyone wants the best. However, in this case, a massive upgrade of MARC service would be more appropriate and cost-effective – expanding service days and hours, increasing frequencies, offering through-routing to Virginia, and so on. This site has the advantage of MARC lines on both sides. If service levels could be increased to match those on some of the Metro-North commuter lines (10-20 minute peak hour headways, late night service, weekend service), extending the Metro wouldn’t be needed. In the comments of the GGW article, BeyondDC provides an alternate proposal – increasing MARC service while building a cross-“town” light rail line to provide service through Fort Meade.

These kinds of ideas, whether they’re fantasy maps or some other proposal, always generate a lot of interest. Matt Yglesias offers his thoughts:

Here I think the key thing to keep in mind is that when you’re talking about new heavy rail construction, the potential benefits can be quite large but you have to decide if you actually want to seize them.

If you added a Metro station there, would the local area permit the surrounding quarter mile or so developed as a fairly dense walkable community? Or would people hear about proposals to build on the green space and up-zone the built-up area and decide that would lead to too much traffic? Maybe instead they’ll want to just turn the undeveloped patch into another parking lot. That’d be no good. And the existing land use patterns around Maryland’s Green Line stations don’t inspire a ton of confidence.

Of course, it’s much easier to create an urban environment in an urban setting – plus, you can create the same kind of TOD/urbanism with a heavily accentuated MARC service.

Ryan Avent also chimes in at The Bellows:

To expand on this a little bit, Metro is the region’s most expensive transit option, but it’s also the one with the greatest potential to drive development. Generally speaking, we want to plan our transit systems so that we’re maximizing the benefits we get for the cost of the investment. If Maryland isn’t prepared to zone for significant development around Metro stations, it would be very silly to make the large investment in Metro. Better to develop a commuter rail line or light rail line or both (depending on anticipated development and commuting patterns).

Metro can indeed help shape development, but it’s important to realize that Laurel is still Laurel – no matter how you slice it, it’s a long ways away from downtown DC.

The Silver Line, to take another example, is an expensive investment. It would probably have been much smarter to simply connect Fairfax County destinations (and Dulles) with Arlington and the District via commuter rail but for the fact that the new Metro line is part of a major effort to increase density at Tysons corner.

The key difference between a Green line extension and the Silver line, however, is that the Green line already parallels an existing transitway with huge potential to upgrade service on the cheap (relatively speaking). The Silver line doesn’t have a similar option – Commuter Rail beyond Tysons Corner would indeed be a great option in the abstract, but the conditions don’t exist to make it work.

Avent’s conclusion is spot on, however. Extending Metro further out along the Green line is a mis-match between location and mode, and these kinds of mis-matches will impose costs on the core. Instead of a Parisian system where the Metro and RER compliment each other, Metro’s hybrid nature pushes these two uses into the same system.

These costs are increasingly borne by users in the core of the system, where growth in the number of trains and passengers have led to crowded conditions on platforms and back-ups during peak periods. To some extent, this can be addressed by increasing peak fares, but given the obvious value of Metro, the growth in the system’s spokes, and the fact that the District is better suited than almost anywhere else in the metro area to handle increased density, it seems clear that new core capacity is needed (as well as a new river crossing over or under the Potomac).

Metro doesn’t stop running when it enters the District. If Virginia and Maryland want to continue to build Metro extensions, they ought to offer their full support to an effort to add capacity in the core.

What’s more – investments in the core (say, in the form of a new, separated Blue line) will bear fruit for lines outside the core as well. The new Blue line would eliminate the capacity constraints of the interlined portion of track through DC – thus increasing the potential capacity on existing Orange and Blue line track in MD and VA.

Express yourself

Express subway service is one of those burrs in the saddle for DC folks measuring themselves and their city against New York.

Over the past week, there’s been a lot of talk about express train service. First, in a GGW point/counterpoint, posters weighed the merits of the current Silver Line proposal versus a hypothetical line along the W&OD trail; Matt Johnson noted the technical hurdles of re-using the W&OD right of way; Dan Malouf/BDC proposed running express train service with the currently planned trackage; Steve Offut looked at using the Route 7 corridor for a new transit line, one that mirrors the general path of the W&OD trail.

All of these discussions about express train service begin from the starting assumption that express service is necessary. On Friday, Matt Johnson provided some much-needed historical perspective. The takeaway from his post is that express tracks are 1) quite rare in the grand scheme of things, and 2) are only found in much older legacy systems.

Given that, had planners pressed for a four-track system, Metro would either be half the size it is today, would have taken twice as long to build, or would have been killed outright. The debate we’re having with the Tysons/Dulles Silver Line right now is case-in-point. Already the project has been sliced and diced in terms of frill, and it’s still uncertain whether it will ever reach the airport. The first phase dangled right on the cusp of being too expensive for FTA’s criteria, and several times the project looked all but dead. If things like redundant elevators and the familiar hexagonal tiles might be enough to kill the project, can you imagine the reaction of FTA if Virginia demanded four tracks?

These older, legacy systems were built in a different era of construction standards for disruption and process – New York’s massive cut and cover subways come to mind.

With that note, Second Ave Sagas throws in their two cents. While New York is constantly cited as a system that’s done it ‘right,’ the Second Avenue Subway doesn’t have express tracks in the works.

The real problem though will come in the future. What will we do when trains break down and hold up the line? What will we do when express service is needed because the local trains are at capacity? The untenable solution would be to construct a time machine and convince New York to build this subway system in the 1930s or 1940s or 1950s when the four-track option was on the table. For now, we’ll just have to live with a two-track line if and when it opens.

One commenter also notes that New York’s subway has lots of express tracks in Brooklyn and The Bronx that are unused – ridership doesn’t warrant express service. Four-tracked lines are extremely rare in the world for a reason – they’re very expensive and usually not cost-effective. New York’s express trains are also aided by the very close station spacing for local trains, giving express trains an advantage. However, when dealing with limited resources, using rapid transit with slightly longer station spacing (as is planned for the Second Ave Subway, and as Metro and most modern systems have been built) is a far more prudent use of funds:

Transit watchers were not pleased with the lack of express service. Considering the length of the route and its projected ridership — around 200,000 per day for just Phase I and 500,000 per day for the entire line — Second Ave. was ripe for an express line. Instead, the MTA altered the spacing of the stations and lengthened mezzanine station access to better serve neighborhoods. The 72nd St. station, for example, will have an entrance between 74th and 75th Sts. while the 86th St. station will have a southern egress between 83rd and 84th Sts. Thus, a station stop at 79th St. was deemed to be unnecessarily redundant.

Instead of pushing for the pipe dream of express tracks, we should push for more investment in the core. That’s the redundancy we want from Metro.

DC’s potential express tracks already exist – they just have freight trains running on them right now. A massive improvement in MARC and VRE, getting headways up and extending hours of operations, as well as through-routing, would be a de-facto regional express companion to Metro.

Bottom line – express tracks would be nice, but given the choice between, say, express tracks vs. a separated Blue line, you go for the Blue line, no questions asked. If tunnel boring machines make it economical to bore a 4-track tunnel, then let’s consider it. Until then, the marginal improvements in service aren’t worth the added cost.

Metro track work

This past weekend’s extensive track work has come and gone. I was riding the system through L’Enfant Plaza on Monday, and caught a few images from the work.

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Yellow line to Stadium-Armory.

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Track work equipment under the northern mezzanine of L’Enfant Plaza’s upper level. Directly behind me was a flatbed car full of old switch tracks that were being removed/replaced from the crossover here. I tried to grab a photo of that as well, but my camera died.

And, completely unrelated to this weekend’s specific work, escalator reconstruction at Potomac Ave:

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City Block

a work in progress…