Unsuck DC Metro: WTFoggy Bottom?

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

WTFoggy Bottom?

@vcsjones @unsuckdcmetro a memento of Foggy Bottom. http://twitpic.com/2bcsiq

@peroty http://twitpic.com/2bccjb This bodes well. #wmata #foggybottom #clusterfail

From Meredith:

Is there any information about Foggy Bottom? More than half of the turnstiles don't let people through, and on several occasions, they've opened up the gates and waved everyone through. I don't know if they did that because NONE of the gates worked (what one co-worker said happened when she was there) or if the lines to get through became so long that they just decided to open things up. The other morning, only three gates were working to exit the station at 8:30 a.m!

One morning, they waved us through without swiping to exit, and when I went to swipe in the afternoon, there was no problem. However, the times that I've been sent into the Metro without swiping, I've had to "See Station Manager" upon exiting in Vienna. All I have to say is "I got on at Foggy Bottom," and the station manager sends me through the gate without paying

As a side note, there are two station managers at Vienna in the afternoons/evenings who are extremely friendly and helpful.

From Metro:

We are currently working on some hardware issues (cables) at Foggy Bottom between the station’s computer and the faregates. We have specialists who have been working to fix it. It is important to repair because if we send new “fare tables” for new fares to that station, a functioning cable ensures that everything gets updated correctly.

Other items:

Board members to meet with NTSB (WMATA)
Metro sucks up SmarTrip (NBC4)
One event, two takes:

Metro's tweet about a problem: "Green Line: The Garage entrance is temporarily closed due to a power problem. Customers can utilize the Howard Rd (Bus) entrance.
DC Fire/EMS' about the same thing: "update - Anacostis Metro Garage SE -elec utilty rm - EMS evaluated & transported 2 adult males - elecrical burns - both serious (pri 1 &2)"
WaPo story

Comments (27)

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+1 Vote up Vote down

Ever and Anon · 763 weeks ago

Hey Unsuck! I saw you on TV this morning! At 6:55 am on Channel 4 they flashed up a photo and your name in big letters. Held it there awhile and mentioned your blog name.

KUDOS to Unsuck!

Of course the idiots reporting mentioned Metro wants you to use SmartCards and you "get a discount too." What discount? The lack of extra-extra 25 cents for paper?

Meanwhile, up my costs and the same day the exit station once again has no escalator running up and the hallway and area to the lone small rickety elevator was completely dark. Talk about asking for a muggin'...

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Guest · 763 weeks ago

So incredibly unfair! :( I want to see UnSuck's face as he has made this website the one I visit the most throughout my day (more than once a day)! I also want to see who UnSuck is because he makes me laugh with some of his comments! :)

If you don't read the Tweets on the side, you really should (not a Tweeter myself so...)! Loved the middle finger comment as well as the protip! They're both so incredibly wrong, but funny nevertheless! :D

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JGutin · 763 weeks ago

only one faregate was functioning at U Street for weeks on end. Cones and handwritten signs everywhere, and insane back-ups at rush hour. Seems like faregate fails are becoming as common as escalator fails. Metro fails yet again.

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ZZinDC · 763 weeks ago

Oh My GOD - the NBC story about the 'improved' Smarttrip 'capbilities' literally (and I men it) makes me want to scream. How stupid is Metro? The system is already straining towards capacity, and now they are making it harder to get into and out of the stations? And they didn't anticipate crowding? (Good luck when we reach that magical day when all the rtains are 8-cars and full) I am usually able to find a way to give Metro the benefit of the doubt , and I understand raising the fares isn't always about making my personal commute better today, but when the fare system is so complicated that is slows down the computers, and no one seems to care (would have been nice to mention it to us Metro) then something is VERY WRONG. (I will stop now, since it's Metro I want to scream at not you.)

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Matt G · 763 weeks ago

It's a shame that in the rush to upgrade everything that this problem arose. I hope it gets fixed.

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ElanVitale · 763 weeks ago

WMATA is a joke. It is someones cash cow, although they haven't been turning any profits lately the BOS still gets all their perks and syncophantic favors coughjimgrahamcough. It was never designed to be a prime people mover because they didn't anticipate 30 years down the road. Ward 1 must be wall-to-wall homo if they re-elect that bow tie wearing pig.

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@NoPants_McGee · 763 weeks ago

Foggy Bottom has been a clusterf*ck for over a week now because of this issue. They've also had at least one fare gate that doesn't take smartrip and hasn't for 6+ months with no signage to indicate this. It's such BS.

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Annon · 763 weeks ago

http://www.nbcwashington.com/traffic/transit/Metr...

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@elizabethtalks · 763 weeks ago

Yesterday was such a clusterfuck. This morning was starting to devolve pretty quickly. Turnstiles would work for one person, then not at all. Then about four stopped working at once. Then the dear Metro employees would cop an attitude, saying, "You know you guys, there are farecard readers on the OTHER SIDE," like we were five. Only two of those were working.

I can't believe we're paying more money for THIS. For shitty technology, for crappy employees who get bitchy because we're hot and trying to get to and from work, and god forbid we don't appreciate being herded around like cattle.

I can't wait until we move back into DC. I can stick to taking the D1 and D2 buses and not worry about this horrid station ever again. I think my favorite part from yesterday was when an elderly woman who seemed disoriented and had just come out of the Emergency Room at GW was trying to ask the cop/Metro employee guarding the station what was happening. His totally awesome response? He yelled "You have to get in fucking line lady, just like everyone else."

I ended up hopping a bus at 24th and Penn to Farragut West last night and I'll probably do the same tonight. Foggy Bottom has always been a piece of work, but this takes the cake.

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Dave · 763 weeks ago

A discount is a price you receive off the normal price, not the avoidance of a newly added fee. I think the paper card FEE is ridiculous, but what's even worse is how they pretend the smartrip offers some discount, what a joke. Call it what it is, metro, and stop pissing off your customers with these BS, juvenile, only-in-metroland types of things.

Also, now that we get charged a FEE for using paper cards, can we now add their value to our dumbtrip cards if they're greater than $5?!!!

+2 Vote up Vote down

Eve · 763 weeks ago

At 5pm yesterday only 1 gate at Foggy Bottom worked. The rest had pieces of paper over the smart trip targets saying "no smart-trip". It was like metro wanted to be able to charge us more for fare-cards. Eventually by scanning over and over again several of us got through the "broken" gates which makes it even more bizarre. It was a nightmare.

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@make_lemons · 763 weeks ago

are all the escalators out at Foggy Bottom, or am i getting that mixed up with another station? I have family coming in from out of town this weekend and we were planning to hitt Gtown via Foggy Bottom. Should I scrap those plans??

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Hyrcan · 763 weeks ago

ahh things I no longer worry about now that I bike to work. So refreshing.

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@Zirinsky · 763 weeks ago

WMATA's decision to not actually mention the sexual assaults and "serious" electrical burns at its facilities in these absurd public notices is so frightening. From the Board to the bus drivers, the culture of entitlement, secrecy and indifference--if not open hostility--to its customers is unbelievable and unacceptably dangerous. The NTSB and Congress should demand they clean house, starting with a new board that isn't just used for political patronage and a new contract that insists that those fired for egregious safety violations stay fired.

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JPSA · 763 weeks ago

Foggy Bottom gates have been having problems for well over a week now. I'm glad someone else has had good experiences with the afternoon employees at Vienna, because mine have been less great. The first day the FB gates weren't working the woman basically called me a liar, told me I had done it wrong, and proceeded to lecture me with frequent exclamations of "If I'm telling you this, you know it's true." For real? Metro employees have told me the trains are on time when I have been waiting for 20 minutes at the height of rush hour. Metro employees have told me that the trains are safe when the NTSB says otherwise. Metro employees have told me that they are sorry for the inconvenience (of making people late to work, of turning my 1 hour commute into two hours plus of hell, of cars with no air conditioning or heat, of escalators that don't work, of elevators that don't work, of offloading the &^%$@ train for the second or third time in a week). You'll forgive me if I have a hard time believing something a Metro emplyee tells me when the DIRECT EVIDENCE OF MY EXPERIENCE tells me otherwise.

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MZK · 763 weeks ago

The exact same thing happened last night at Huntington. Big crowd backed up, with the station manager making each of us swipe our card at the single (theoretically) working exit, just to prove that it didn't work. Here's a hint: If it didn't work for the 99 people before me, it's not going to work just because I'm here. After we proved that it was the faregate and not our cards, we were let out through the gate.

Does Metro actually test any of it's fixes beforehand, or do they just roll them out and see what happens?

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SoBar · 763 weeks ago

You know what is infuriating about all of this?

If Metro was a private company, imagine how much furor this would cause among our politicians. They would be pulling out one another's hair and trampling each other to get in front of the cameras and scream and yell about how awful it is, hold hearings to embarrass those in charge, pass laws, regulations, etc.

Instead, since they're already running the show, or at least providing (lack of) oversight, these problems might as well not exist as far as they're concerned.

And yes, Jim Graham, I'm looking right at you.

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Greg · 763 weeks ago

Yesterday, everyone was getting the "See Station Manager" message at Vienna around 6:30pm. I rode from NY Ave to Vienna and got it, too. These new SmarTrip updates are not rolling out very well. It's making me rethink my (soon-to-come) participation in the pilot to put weekly passes on SmarTrip cards. Ugh.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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jkuchen · 763 weeks ago

And they still hadn't fixed Vienna as of 5:30 on Tuesday--they were sending everyone with a SmarTrip card through the emergency exit gate!

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yatesc · 763 weeks ago

The scanner at the garage entrance was also acting up. Took me the better part of an hour to slooooooooowly wind my way down from the 4th floor to the exit. Luckily they (eventually) waved people through the gates. "Free" parking is not worth an extra hour in the car.

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C S · 763 weeks ago

Hey Greg -- I've been very interested in that weekly pass thing on SmarTrip...please do tell what's up, based on what you know so far. Thanks!

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Miranda · 763 weeks ago

This is the best blog ever!!!
I'm sure I will have plenty of info. for your, for me being pissed at the metro is a daily occurrence http://washingtondcfashion.blogspot.com/

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DMCinDC · 763 weeks ago

Tonight at 7:45 pm at Dupont Circle South, none of the gates were working, but they had all of them open and just told people to go on through, so I got a free shitty metro ride home tonight. It's so nice to not have to pay for a shitty metro ride, eh? This morning I had to pay for a ride in an ultra hot car.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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@kara_h · 763 weeks ago

Should have taken the metro again and got a free ride. At least one gate at Dupont's south exit was open.

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DMCinDC · 763 weeks ago

This morning, Thursday, the gates were open again at Dupont South and I was told to just go through.... so yeah, free ride again, and at least I had a cooler car ride today... SCORE! :0Þ

It amazes me how much money metro must be losing this week, all because they got greedy about raising the fares and making riders pay for their incompitence and wasteful spending.

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Vicki · 763 weeks ago

Foggy Bottom's gates weren't working again this morning - so I guess I got a free ride since they finally just opened them up to let people walk through. Of course, now I'll probably have problems when I try to get on metro later tonight....oh well. Wish there was another metro station closer to me, I am so tired of the constant foggy bottom drama.

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@joncamfield · 763 weeks ago

This wasn't restricted to Foggy Bottom, the fair gates at Eastern Market and Rosslyn were intermittent as well. Yay increased fare upgrades! Now, a good chunk of gates are taped up with "no smartrip" - so, I guess the 25 cent surcharge on paper tickets is for "express" paper-only lanes?