Friday, March 24, 2006
Oh Metro!
Mass Transit: How I love to hate it and hate to love it
Ok, I love living in a city where I can get around to 90% of my destinations by subway. I do! At the same time, DC's Metro is so mismanaged (not as bad as NY's MTA, but close) that it is also a passion of those of us who use metro to complain at length about the poor management of WMATA.
First, there's the always broken escalators. Yes, it seems wimpy to complain about that, but some stations are up to 500 feet underground, so imagine hiking up that on your way how. What's worse about the escalator situation is that Metro just finished spending $200 million to fix the problems and now even fewer escalators are working. (Unlike other city metro systems, most station here have only escalators (not stairs) to get into and out of the stations.
Anway, the coup de grace this week is this report:
Nice! Of course since this is a public employee they won't be fired, and will still be able to retire on full pension at 50.
Ok, I love living in a city where I can get around to 90% of my destinations by subway. I do! At the same time, DC's Metro is so mismanaged (not as bad as NY's MTA, but close) that it is also a passion of those of us who use metro to complain at length about the poor management of WMATA.
First, there's the always broken escalators. Yes, it seems wimpy to complain about that, but some stations are up to 500 feet underground, so imagine hiking up that on your way how. What's worse about the escalator situation is that Metro just finished spending $200 million to fix the problems and now even fewer escalators are working. (Unlike other city metro systems, most station here have only escalators (not stairs) to get into and out of the stations.
Anway, the coup de grace this week is this report:
The operator of the runaway Metro train that rolled backward for 78 seconds and slammed into another train at the Woodley Park Station in November 2004 failed to brake because he was very likely asleep, federal safety officials said yesterday.
Nice! Of course since this is a public employee they won't be fired, and will still be able to retire on full pension at 50.
