We once made the mistake of trusting the upper level sign at Federal Ctr. SW, which said the next train coming was an Orange Line train. It's right about half the time, we've come to realize.Anyway, on this particular day, we hustled in and blindly boarded the next train only to start getting queasy as we moved through Metro Ctr. No, it wasn't because of the herky jerky driving. The train just wasn't full like usual.
We didn't trust our instincts and ended up having to get off at Rosslyn. Yes, we'd gotten a Blue Line train.
While at Rosslyn, we made a few pathetic attempts to cram onto an Orange Line train before deciding to walk to Court House for beers.
It's silly the difference in ridership between the Orange and Blue, yet so often, it's a Blue that comes when it's an Orange you want. That apparent disparity really is irksome during a meltro like last night.
Thanks to Orange Line Rider Will for CCing us on this letter to WMATA.
In what conceivable universe does it make sense to provide DOUBLE the number of Blue Line trains west toward Virginia as Orange Line trains in the midst of evening rush hour during a MAJOR DELAY???
Seriously, two half-empty Blue Line trains for every one stuffed-to-the-gills, so-crowded-don't-even-think-about-boarding Orange Line trains!!
I had to watch two Orange lines and FOUR Blue Line trains go by before I could squeeze on board at Farragut West--the Orange Line trains spaced about 15 minutes apart!!!
Doesn't anyone at Metro keep ridership statistics? Isn't there anyone there who understands there are probably twice as many Orange Line riders as Blue Line riders going in that direction at that time of night? Is this rocket science or something?
Who are the GENIUSES WHO ARE RUNNING THIS SHOW???????
Sincerely yours,
FRUSTRATED on the Orange Line
It was bad last night. It was still packed at 8 pm when I left the gym at courthouse. I had to wait 15 minutes for a packed orange line train. The humid weather and damp cars were a nice touch to make the commute even better.
ReplyDeleteGross.
I'll admit that going westbound on the Orange on any given weekday between 4:30pm and 7pm is a crush festival not to be attempted by the casual rider.
ReplyDeleteI take the Green, Northbound, from Gallery Place to Shaw every evening. It's Green, or you're walking. The Yellow only goes to the Convention Center and then turns around.
Every day the northbound side of the platform is crushed to capacity. Commuters and meandering tourists mingle expectantly as 8 car Yellow line trains stop every 3-5 minutes. A few of the clueless get on, and get off again realizing their folly.
A typical Green line (6 car) wait runs me between 8-15 minutes on average. Not that I can actually get on one of those Green Line trains. Oh no. Too full.
I'll get to the platform between 5:40 and 6pm. The ride to Shaw takes 5 minutes. I usually don't get home until 6:30 - 7pm... waiting on the platform.
that's weird, because a lot of the time at farragut west, it'll be two oranges to every blue. but then, from what i've seen, between farragut west and metro center/l'enfant, both orange and blue are packed so it doesn't make much of a difference.
ReplyDeleteWhile Metro should have a basic idea of ridership disparities between different lines, it's probably difficult to come up with good numbers. Remember that you swipe your SmarTrip card when you enter the station, not the train. The only way to tell which line a rider took would be to look at their exit station, and even that gets messy with transfers and stations that serve more than one line. And even if Metro knew exactly how many people got on each train, how would they know how many of the people waiting on the platform tried and failed to get on the train?
ReplyDeleteSeconded. Orange line suuuuucked last night. Got to Farragut West around 6:30. Couldn't go down to the platform on the Vienna-bound side for at least 10 minutes, and then proceeded to wait for another HOUR before I could get on an Orange line train to Vienna.
ReplyDeleteI thought about backtracking, but the announcements kept saying that the power failure had been resolved, so I was expecting a rush of piggybacked Oranges. Instead, the Oranges came LESS FREQUENTLY than usual during that time of the evening. WTF?? Couldn't Metro have switched some of the half-empty Blue line trains that were coming through to Franconia to Orange??
Yellow heading westward is similarly suck-worthy. They really just need to add more eight-car trains in that direction. :P
ReplyDeleteOrange Line to Court House last night switched to Blue in middle of ride. Make sense of that.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky enough to make it on an orange line to vienna at metro center at around 5:15 and experienced no problems. usually im also stuck in the suck.
ReplyDeleteRegarding inaccuracies in the upper station-level electronic signs:
ReplyDeleteI have noticed the same thing at other metro stations, and assumed it was intentional. I think the upper-level signs are programmed not to show trains that are less than a minute or two away, perhaps to prevent customers from panicking and running even faster than they already do. For example, sometimes the sign at Federal Triangle near the ticket machines will say the next train is a blue line in 4 minutes, even though at that very moment an orange line train is pulling in that was not mentioned on the upper-level sign (but is on the platform sign). My rule of thumb is, if I hear a train pulling into the station while I am near the fare gates, it probably isn't the one listed on the sign.
I agree with the previous comment. I board at gallery place and the sign in the mezzanine is atleast a good minute walk to any of the platforms, so it doesn't make any sense to advertise a train that a rider won't be able to catch. it also helps prevent people from "booking it" to make it to the next train, thereby knocking over all the tourists.
ReplyDelete