Unthinking, Insensitive Doors Boot Passengers from Priority Seating

Metro's new courtesy campaign encourages you to give up your seat for someone who needs it. The flip side is that Metro's frequent door issues all too often take that seat right back and then put a disabled or injured passenger through an obstacle course even the most able bodied find difficult to traverse.
From Blue Line rider Addison H.:
I was traveling on the Blue line toward Franconia-Springfield this morning when my train experienced severe door failure. We pulled into National Airport station and then pulled away without discharging any of the tourists and travelers who were patiently waiting by the doors, suitcases in hand, no doubt ready to catch a flight.
This prompted a flurry of curses in German and a frantic cell phone call from the nice couple standing next to me. I originally thought we missed the station, but when we pulled into Braddock Road, the operator came over the intercom and asked "if the doors of car #3085 do not open, please let me know." I looked back: Yup, I was in car #3085.
Deep sigh.
Luckily, for the airport crowd, the doors opened at Braddock Road, and they were able to disembark but no doubt gifted some additional stress about whether they'd make their flights.
King Street however, was a different story. We pulled into the station, but again the doors didn't open. The chimes and disembodied voice worked, but the doors remained shut fast. People rushed for the emergency intercoms at both ends of the train.
The operator tried to cycle the doors, then came into the car and tried the emergency door opener, but to no avail. Finally, he led the occupants of the car through the emergency exit and onto the platform via the car in front of 3085.
Thanks Metro!
For those of you who aren't aware or haven't had the pleasure of escaping from a Metro car, the emergency doors are located at either end of a train car. They open and you walk across the coupling between the cars into the car ahead of or behind the stricken car. Looking down you can see the gravel and rails. I would not want to attempt this on a moving train.
This maneuver would be extremely difficult for a handicapped person, someone on crutches or someone with a service animal.

Even In the Event of Possible Decapitation, Do Not Block Doors!

From "M" on the Red Line:
At approximately 8:35 a.m. yesterday morning, I was on a train to Shady Grove heading into work. At Takoma Park, a woman with a rolling suitcase began to board the train. It had rained overnight, so the platform was wet and slippery. As she headed in, she tripped and fell quite hard on the platform. She looked to be in pain, and both passengers inside the train and outside came to her aid. She was visibly upset and clutching her wrist.
A passenger on the platform was waving to the conductor to not close the doors and to wait. From where I was sitting, it appeared that part of her had landed partially in the doorway, so I wasn't surprised that one of the inside passengers attempted to hold the door open when the chimes rang that they were closing. Frantically, the passenger on the platform pulled the woman out of the doorway just as they were closing.
As the train pulled out of the station, the conductor angrily announced over the intercom that "passengers are advised that no matter what, do not block the doors from closing. Ever." This "announcement" elicited more than a few middle fingers and "what the hell?" grumblings from the passengers in my car who were simply trying to help an injured woman.
I am completely at a loss as to why this conductor handled this situation SO poorly. I have no idea if the women hit her head, or suffered any other injury where having to move her that quickly could have injured her further. Conductors have a responsibility to be aware of their surroundings and respond appropriately. Today, they did not.

Perhaps they were ogling again.

Other news:
Just when you thought federal funding was looking good... (WTOP) We disagree with the writer saying the federal funding "would" fix Metro's problems. We would have gone with "could."
Dulles Rail gets stim $ (WTOP)

Unsucking Metro's Doors Through Peer Pressure?

In a previous post, a Metro spokesman said doors are a main reasons for delays, and even though they don’t keep stats, the spokesman wrote in an email “more often than not, door problems stem from someone attempting to hold the doors open.”
Hmm. OK.
As we mentioned before, we’ve seen people cram through doors, and the Metro spokesman wrote they’d “even seen mothers try to block the doors with baby strollers!” Mothers!
They added that Metro’s doors are not designed like elevator doors because they don’t bounce back when something blocks them. “If this were the case, the trains would never move because the doors would never close,” they wrote.
If the operator cannot get the “all doors closed” signal, he cannot move the train. To remedy this, the spokesman wrote, the operator will bump the doors (open and close rapidly) (ding dong) to try and free whatever might be blocking the doors. This remedy also can create problems as customers take this as another opportunity to crowd into an already jam packed car, keeping the doors from closing, they wrote.
If several more attempts to get the “all doors closed” are not successful, the operator must then have all the customers exit the train, the door circuit is over-ridden; the train is taken out of service and then has to be inspected to find the problem, wrote the spokesman. If it is determined that there are no problems, the train is put back in service, they wrote.
The spokesman said that Metro has tried to raise awareness of the problem through new station announcements and signs, but that they thought the most important way to stop people from blocking doors was through “peer pressure.”
“Ask your fellow travelers not to block the doors, and tell them why,” they wrote. “It really does work. If you don’t believe [peer pressure] would work on door blocking, think about how it has worked for escalators. Standing on the right was never something Metro promoted, that was a custom developed by our riders.”
OK. well, peer pressure might work to some degree, but the real problem here seems to be poorly designed doors. Obviously, new doors would be a big expense, but we think it’s something Metro should look into. It’s simply infuriating to have a train “go out of service” and then watch it head on down the track.
And, um, standing on the right on escalators is not unique to Metro. It's a pretty universal practice, if not always followed.
Do you think peer pressure is the answer here?

Other news:
Suspicious package an empty can (WaPo)

It's Not Just Metro

For all the time we’ve spent calling Metro a ghastly stupid system—which it is--we feel obligated to report that there are certainly equally imbecilic passengers littering the system with their shenanigans.
Today on board an Orange Line train we witnessed a complete moron, toting a rather large suitcase, try to shoehorn himself into an incredibly tight car. The end result was his ass was hanging out of the door as they shut. He was finally able to wriggle free, but his heel remained stuck. To our surprise, the door didn’t open, and he basically had to pull his leg out from the door’s clutches. Now, maybe we’ve all tried a stunt like this--you can’t totally blame someone for wanting to get home after a day of work--but what got us in the end was how he shook his head in disgust as if it were Metro’s fault. The audacity of dumb.
Luckily, this man’s impatience didn’t cause Metro's fragile little doors to go FUBAR, as they are wont to do, and the train went on its way.

Just a couple of hiccups today

In the usual places: between Courthouse and Rosslyn and again between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom. Very herky jerky. Lots of eyes rolling throughout the car I was in. Can any one explain the stop go? I mean I understand if there's congestion, you have to stop, but the constant, fitful stops and starts are irritating.

How come the doors have to be open and shut SO MANY times at nearly every stop?

Sticking up for Metro

From reader "Cal"

As both an ex New Yorker and presently a mechanic for Metrorail I can tell you first hand about some of the problems.

The first and foremost problem is when the system was originally designed (by the Army Corps of Engineers) it was not designed to carry anywhere near the capacity that it does presently. They never imagined or thought they would need any additional track and they didn't install or design any for workaround or a breakdown or any of that.

Second, there is no dedicated funding to go to Metro, now I understand that neither do these other transit systems but to compare apples with apples, we are second (next to the NYC Transit System) in terms of length of track and amount of riders and the NYC system is over 100 years old while we are in our infancy at only 30 years old....

And lastly, I see on a daily basis the "animals" we have riding the rails, between newspapers and bottles and other trash on the trains everyday as well as graffiti which has to be removed and torn and cut up seats which have to be replaced as well as repairing door systems which people hold open to just one more person can get on.....

Am I biased? Absolutely...Do I think it is a good system? Yes. Do I think it can be a great system? Yes. Look at our record ridership for inauguration weekend....

Just some of my thoughts......

Photo: visitingdc.com/