Unsuck DC Metro: Unspinning Metro's Escalator Issues

Anony-moose · 620 weeks ago

I refer everyone to my comments on Dan's 10 points from Yesterday's thread. They got buried in the comments for the main article, but search for "moose" and you'll find them.

4 replies · active 620 weeks ago

John · 620 weeks ago

Copy paste them. They were really good and most likely got lost in the lengthy convo yesterday!

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Anony-moose · 620 weeks ago

Reposting:

Responses to Stessel wanking in public on CBS:

1. That is not transparency. You misunderstand the word. Presenting a roll-up like “vital signs” is obfuscation of the highest order. Statistics are meaningless unless raw data, any math applied, and context are provided with them.
2. You break down more because you travel faster? That’s it? Then you have a problem with how you built your cars. Putting new cars on the track would not have fixed any of the recent major problems like derailments, rails clipping off the power paddles, or a cracked third rail. What’s your answer for how New York deals with its track problems?

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Anony-Moose · 620 weeks ago

3. A more helpful answer would be why they need the whole weekend. Is it because you don’t put enough workers on the job? Is it badly written procedures? Do they need more training in speed? Could you divide the work into smaller chunks that could be accomplished overnight?
4. This is utter deflection and makes no sense. If you follow this logically, it means that metro is saying they cannot run at weekday headways without delays. Plus, Dan says it’s a goal and doesn’t even guarantee a continuous trip. Don’t get me started on metro stations/benches being a comfortable environment.
5. 10 points? Define a “point”, please 10 points out of what, 1,000,000? So now you’re at 50/1,000,000 points? Also, congratulations on demonizing the person who complained by taking an approach of “we’re doing so much better but YOU don’t care because you’re short-sighted”

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Anony-Moose · 620 weeks ago

. I’ll give Dan this one. Metro can’t replace cars faster than the suppliers produce them, so they are kinda stuck with what they have. However, did the doors always have these problems since they were original in the system? Are they repaired to specification and still malfunctioning? What is the cause and has the rail-car supplier been working with you on a permanent solution?
7. Not much to go on here. Metro is not famous for getting back to people, so this is also just deflection.
8. See the response to 6. This is the same thing except for the whole car and not just the doors.
9. Your trips being cheaper is not an excuse to bill people when there are service delays. The order of magnitude of the impact of the individual event is the same – I am just as late for work when VRE delays as when metro delays.
10. Not responding to this. It wasn’t a serious point.

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Dave Alturd · 620 weeks ago

I don't believe in scales and neither does Dan.

I was talking to him the other day during our daily visit to Urban Outfitters to pick up the newest Banksky book and I realized that this is a false equivalency. Suppose Dan told you all how much the "10 points" were out of? You'd still say the stats are twisted. So like me, Dan doesn't release the entire metric because most of the antis would simply misinterprate it to fit their own agendas.

There is no need for anyone in public office or supporting public transportation to release entire sheets of statistics to a public that is simply too stupid to understand them and has a backwards mentality of reliance on fossil fuels.

You people are biased against Dan and public transportation and you know it

Read my blog!: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/

8 replies · active 619 weeks ago

karah 81p · 620 weeks ago

If I hate public transportation so much why do I have a T map on my wall?

UnSuck Fan · 620 weeks ago

:-)

IMHO, Kara, the reason why you have a T map on your wall is because it’s there to remind you what a “decent” subway system is like. I have to put “decent” in quotes because I don’t know anything about the T and have never traveled on it.

I’m the same way. I don’t remember when I had traveled to Chicago, but before I left I had downloaded the CTA app. I was going to say that I still have it on my phone, but I can’t seem to find it. I didn’t mean to delete it. :-( It’s not that I can’t download it again, I just didn’t find the need to delete it; I would still have it on my phone if I ever needed to travel to Chicago again.

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karah 81p · 620 weeks ago

So how does this square with your saying I hate public transportation?

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karah 81p · 620 weeks ago

Oops, my goof, I thought you were the same person as I replied to before.

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Anony-moose · 620 weeks ago

You know, by impersonating Dave and putting a link to his blog in your posts, you're probably providing him a traffic benefit rather than being any sort of detriment. IMHO, what you're doing is tasteless and I'd give it 2/10 on a good day for a minor amount of wit.

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John · 620 weeks ago

As someone who finds the schtick funny, I agree that the link shouldn't be there. That tool shouldn't get any traffic boost.

unsuckDaveAlturd · 619 weeks ago

Though it's not very funny (but I have no problem with it, whatever), hopefully someone at GGW is paying attention to their site analytics (I assume they're tracking, most sites do) and has discovered that unsuck is referring visitors and then found why (and in what context) people are being referred.

Still, I doubt people who read this blog are unfamiliar with GGW. The amount of referrals is likely negligible.

John · 620 weeks ago

You TOTALLY forgot to mention Smart Growth!!!!

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Syrian Red Line · 620 weeks ago

I take the stairs at work every day to train for Metro escalator outages.

Brodrigo Guitar · 620 weeks ago

I couldn't move straight if you set me in roller skates that couldn't move off a parallel track. My promotion is a victory for alcoholism!

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DC_Chickie · 620 weeks ago

I personally wish they would demolish the escalators where they can (e.g. Union Station) and put in stairs and then spend their resources on elevator maintenance and the remaining escalators (e.g., Wheaton). Stairs are so much more practical for the amount of people we have using the system now. I can't stand getting stuck behind one of these chickies who decides to stick her arm and purse out and the people who are yes technically walking, but do so at such a slow pace that they may as well not.

Stairs would be cheaper, make it easier for people to get in and out of stations, and then we could stop talking about this.

5 replies · active 620 weeks ago

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hrh king friday 13 · 620 weeks ago

Metro would find a way to break stairs too. #Jobs

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John · 620 weeks ago

They did manage to take a year to build a staircase in Vienna...

DC20009 · 620 weeks ago

Believe me, people can be just as slow and obstructive on stairs as they can be on escalators.

Jason · 620 weeks ago

There is probably some kind of accessibility requirement preventing this (people who do not have full mobility but are not in wheelchairs, for insancr).

karah 81p · 620 weeks ago

Stairs will not work for people who are, say, using a cane, have luggage, or whatever.

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@JimLCunningham · 620 weeks ago

I wonder if that "10 points" improvement is a percentage of all escalators or just operational escalators or, worse, just in-operational escalators?

If you have just 20% of escalators working and you then get and additional 2% of the total number of escalators working, that's a 10% improvement on the 20% that had been working before (bringing it to 22% of the total, which isn't all that impressive to you or I). But is that a "10 point" improvement in their eyes? I bet that's how they're doing their math.

Anyone with basic math skills can do tricks like that with statistics. ; )

6 replies · active 619 weeks ago

karah 81p · 620 weeks ago

To get numbers worth anything they need to apply weights based on usage and length. Possibly also length of time out of commission and how many other escalators are out in the station but those numbers will pretty much average out so I will give them those two factors. The downed platform escalator in Bethesda was more of a nuisance than a long one in a station that does not get much traffic (especially if the other 2 were running).

Anony-Moose · 620 weeks ago

I'd take it a step further and say that it's dumb to roll up multiple stations or even multiple escalators into an uptime/downtime or performance statistic. The low traffic stations bouy up the never-working high traffic stations. I think the more valuable statistic for starters is the one in the main post: X escalators had an unexpected outage. Then, they should define what constitutes an unexpected outage. After that, they could provide a longest outage, a mean-time-to-repair, a top 5 most frequent unexpected outages. No roll ups beyond this level are really necessary.

By the way, I'm making lots of posts today. Must be Moose Season

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@JimLCunningham · 620 weeks ago

After reading this, I realize that I'm skeptical about what an "unexpected" outage is and whether the numbers are padded by classifying many non-working escalators "expected" outages.

karah 81p · 620 weeks ago

Umm .... that is what weighting by usage and length does? Or am I missing something?

PR+ · 619 weeks ago

This would require foresight.
Then, critical thinking. Math. Constructing words. Configuring words into sentences. (Yes, I realize I'm writing a bunch of sentence fragments.) Then (hopefully) presenting all of this to the public.

That's way harder than proclaiming "We Got Points!"

Who knows, if I was in his situation, I'd make up a reasonable (but optimistic) amount of points. Who expects WMATA to reveal how points are calculated? If it came to that, they could simply manipulate the numbers to reflect whatever Point Achievement was announced.

Obviously, WMATA's just attempting to make their PR more efficient by attempting to cut out the hard part. More efficient PR means more PR for your dollar(s)!

Elizabeth · 620 weeks ago

Yup...the reason I refused to take statistics in college...it's math...manipulated to say whatever people want it to say...so may be false math

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Annie · 620 weeks ago

I wish we could start a campaign "Dan Stessel: Tell us what you mean by 10 points".

2 replies · active 620 weeks ago

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Annie · 620 weeks ago

People could Tweet it and change their Facebook statuses to this, and then the local news media would pick it up and he'd have to answer....just kidding! The news media doesn't like to take the side against Metro unless it is a rock solid case against Metro.

John · 620 weeks ago

Stessel, the "Twitter Guru" has taken to hibernation on twitter....

tricky dick · 620 weeks ago

So i'm not going to rely on statistics, i'm going to rely on what my own eyes saw yesterday. L'Enfant was a cluster, almost half of the escalators were out of service (3 were closed because it's a weekend and they didn't want people going up near the exit that was closed although it led up to the Green and Yellow Platform?)

Joe T. · 620 weeks ago

Typical PR hack stuff. What does "10 points" mean? 10 percentage points? Percentage points compared to what baseline? Not surprising that the WUSA reporter didn't question any of it, though. Reporters never want to upset or embarrass their sources. Continued access which allows them to continue in their jobs is more important than incisive investigative work, these days.

Also, what does Metro mean by "unexpected (escalator) outages"? Aren't all escalator outages unexpected? If an escalator is deliberately switched off, that would not be an outage, that would be Metro making a deliberate decision to deprive "customers" of service.

1 reply · active 619 weeks ago