Thursday, April 22, 2010

Look! It's Elevator Man!

Maybe one of the problems with the escalators is that they have elevator repairmen working on them. Shame on you elevator man. This is escalator man's job!

This tool kit was spotted the morning of April 20 at the bottom of the mezzanine-to-street escalators at Federal Center SW. Both sides of the escalator were blocked off, but the escalator was running. Not a soul was around.

That afternoon, this escalator was working, but the one next to it was cordoned off. It was out of service on the 21st as well, but a repairman, hopefully an escalator repairman, was working on it.

Other items:
  • Big day of congressional hearings for Metro. Summary here. Complete docs and video here. It was a very interesting hearing. Interim GM Richard Sarles came across much better than John Catoe ever did. He seemed to have a grasp of how dire things at Metro truly are. It was refreshing to hear both him and WMATA Board chair Peter Benjamin acknowledge that Metro's problems run deeper than a lack of funding. Even union boss Jackie Jeter was impressive in her indictment of WMATA's hiring of consultants and for being all talk and no action. At this point, it's all still talk, but WMATA is certainly at a pivotal point, and future actions, if there are any, will have long term consequences.
  • Gunn report released to public. (WMATA)
  • Fares could go up, up and away (Examiner)
  • Knife wielding bus driver "fired" (Examiner)
  • Dulles rail project hits snag (WTOP)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Sarles came off better, why did Metro only release the Gunn report at Van Hollen's insistence?

How is being prodded to be open by a Congressman about an assessment of the system any different under Sarles then it was under Catoe?

Unsuck DC Metro said...

In the hearing, it was Benjamin who seemed reluctant to release the report.

Anonymous said...

Weaker than the smallest child, able to break with a gentle sigh. Look! Up on the platform! It's moving? No! It's fixed? No! It's Metro's Elevator!

Anonymous said...

I was half-heartedly listening to the announcements they were making this morning about which elevators were out of service. Could you imagine what it would be like if they included escalator outages as well?!? Hahahaha!!

Anonymous said...

WMATA elevator repairmen get it up? They seem to get it broken.

Anonymous said...

$2.00 each way? You gotta be kidding me.

Anonymous said...

Wednesday evening, the down escalator at 12th and G. streets entrance to Metro Center abruptly stopped completely with a load of passengers on it. No workmen or employees around. Very odd.
I told the station manager. She actually acknowledged me, and I heard her call someone to let them know. Moving parts at their worst; station manager doing what she can (?) to pass along the information.

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