Metro Contemplates Arresting Riders for 'Self Evacuation'

At the most recent board meeting, Metro officials, and the board the "oversees" them, discussed the troubling events of the Great Green Line Charlie Foxtrot of 2013.

Metro staff seemed to lay the bulk of the blame on a lowly operator and a lowly Metro Transit Police officer.

While the continued inability of the board and Metro staff to acknowledge the bigger picture is infuriating, the really shocking surprise came when the chairman of the board, Tom Downs, took center stage at what has become the most tragicomic open mic event in the DC region.

He said the one thing that "made the hair stand up on the back of his neck" was the passengers "self evacuating." He and the board showed how completely disconnected they are by agreeing that "self evacuating" is an irrational step for a rider to take.

Obviously, they've never been stuck in a dark, superheated Metro car for hours with people puking, pissing, having seizures and fighting while Metro provides absolutely no information. Obviously, they ignore a long pattern of Metro putting riders in similar situations or worse again and again.

But it gets worse as Downs searched for ways to stop "self evacuation." 

Here's the line of questions put forth by Downs to Metro staff:

"From an enforcement standpoint, can a police officer physically restrain passengers from self evacuation? Do they have the legal authority to do so? Can an officer arrest a customer?"

Read that again. Let it sink in. He's serious. That's his solution.

The response from Metro Police Chief Michael Taborn was "absolutely."

One has to wonder if ever in the history of mass transit did a subway system seriously contemplate arresting riders for trying to escape from a hellish situation caused by the subway system.

Whenever I think Metro has hit suck's rock bottom, someone at Metro or on the board opens up a new crate of dynamite and discovers a whole new, deeper shaft of suck.

Here's another view from DC Metro Sucks.