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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Red Line Today

During my MARC ride into Union Station, I received an email from a colleague that said the Red Line was in Major Delay Mode. It was several months ago that I gave up on the Red Line due the many elevator and escalator outages at Union Station and Metro Center. Not withstanding the actual train delays, the the ancillary vertical and diagonal "rail" services had become quite a problem.

For a person who relies on those vertical transports (aka elevators) the amount of extra time in the system exceeded the rail benefits over the surface bus service.
I arrived a minute too late at the bus stop and could see the extra multitude of "breakdown" riders already waiting to board that bus. I was nowhere near the stop to even try to get aboard using a wheelchair. While waiting for the next bus, I was able to compare rider notes with a few women who likewise are MARC commuters and who normally ride the Red Line trains. Their comments paralleled mine.

While riding along E Street, one could tell that there was something afoot with the Metro due to the abundance of middle aged white men wearing blue and white stripped shirts seeking to board the bus along the way and needing to ask what the fare would be. I was glad that I chose a shirt other than my blue and white stripped one.

The ride was a bit slower than normal but it did manage to be far faster than the rails. Another colleague passed me in the office and said that he decided to take my advice and try the bus this morning. He said it was a good alternative but... but he got on going the wrong direction. By the time he was well into NE rather than NW, he figured that he better ask. He was still here before me. Therefore even with starting out in the wrong direction and getting turned around, the bus was still better today.

We keep hearing that "they are working on it" and that services will be getting better. Apparently they had a long way to go just to get to "square one." I still suspect that services will get worse before it gets better at the rate maintenance and repairs are going.


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