Midday Metro riders can expect agonizing delays Thursday as federal transportation experts continue their investigation into last month’s Red Line crash. Ditto for Saturday, WMATA announced.
Service between Takoma and Fort Totten will be suspended between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Thursday, according to a press statement. Shuttle buses will shlep people between those stations; meanwhile, trains will run between Glenmont and Silver Spring, and between Fort Totten and Shady Grove stations.
Expect the same shit on Saturday, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
All of this allows investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board to check out site distance on that curved part of track where the crash occurred. Nine people died and 76 were injured when two Red Line trains collided between Takoma and Fort Totten.
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I heard on WAMU, I think it was, that they’re replaced the signaling parts but are still getting that “fluttering”. That’s rather scary, pointing to more of a systemic issue than a faulty part there between Ft Totten and Takoma?
I heard something similar from a WMATA rep: that the equipment controlling speed near Takoma was replaced with brand-new gear, but it still showed signs of malfunction.
Buses are the backbone of public transit. They are also the Rodney Dangerfields, always taken for granted, and getting no respect. Metrorail riders are more affluent, which leads to a cascading series of consequences for zoning and land use.
Rail = $. Buses = well, something else.
The fatal rail crash and the real estate bust may start to change perceptions.
This whole ordeal with the red line should provide more than enough justification on why we need the purple line built. Someone traveling from Silver Spring to Bethesda or from Silver Spring to College Park could bypass the chaos that is occuring on the red line by taking the purple line.
No, this whole ordeal shows why we should strengthen the bus system we have, and improve the taxi system. The Purple Line would be rail, which means that even at an early stage of approval, communities along the line would be disrupted by pressure for rezoning, demolition, and replacement with something bigger and costlier. The area for transit-oriented development used to be 800 feet, sometimes a quarter-mile. Last year the Md. legislature changed it to a half-mile. And “floating zones” can be conjured up, so areas more than a half-mile from stations might be threatened.
Editor’s note: One WMATA official would tend to agree with you on strengthening the bus system. That article drops next week. — JD (Jul 16, 2009)
Does that mean that the entire line is functional (albeit slow) outside of those hours? Will I be able to go from Silver Spring to Ft. Totten without shuttles late Fri/Sat evening?
As far as I know, you can still get your groove on in The District late Friday and Saturday nights without sweating the Red Line too much.
Of course, that could all change tomorrow. I’ll post any announced service changes for the Red Line here and on The Penguin’s Twitter feed.
Damn. Wish I had seen this before dropping hubby off at Silver Spring station around noon. He’s probably still sitting on that shuttle to Ft Totten.
For some trips, it may be possible to bypass the shuttle buses and just go there on a regular bus in the first place. See the “trip planner” on the wmata homepage, and pick “bus only.”
A missing link is taxi stands, which can be hard to find. For the Silver Spring station, taxis line the street across from the construction, so if one exits the at the fare gates and walks eastward toward that funky yellow building, a line of taxis should appear. However, I have never figured out if the Takoma station even has a taxi stand. I do see some taxis under the viaduct sometimes. Zipcar has cars at SS, Takoma & Ft. Totten stations, but only a few, and I don’t know how the time lapse between joining and getting approved and actually getting to reserve/drive one.
Dudes, you can’t go wrong taking the S9 Express bus to downtown DC at $1.25 per ride. Despite the traffic on 16th Street, I still arrive at the same time if I had traveled on the red line to Farragut North station.
Metro rail is a system-wide mess right now. Thank God for the buses.