Washington Metro

The Washington Metro, or simply Metro, is the public transportation system of Washington, D.C., and neighboring suburban communities in Maryland and Virginia, both inside and outside the Capital Beltway. In Maryland service is provided in Prince George's County and Montgomery County; in Virginia, service extends to Fairfax County, Arlington County, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church.

Both the Metrorail (subway) system and the Metrobus (bus) services are owned and operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) — a multijurisdictional, quasi-governmental agency. WMATA also operates a paratransit service for the disabled called MetroAccess. However, the expression "Metro" usually refers to Metrorail exclusively.

Unlike the subway systems in cities such as Boston or New York, Metrorail fare is not fixed, but instead varies based on the distance traveled and the time of day. Riders enter and exit the system using a stored-value card in the form of a paper magnetic stripe farecard or a proximity card known as SmarTrip. Both methods track the balance paid to Metro, as well as the rider's entry and exit points.

Since opening in 1976, the subway network has grown to five lines, consisting of 86 stations and 106.3 miles (171 km) of track. The original plan of 83 stations on 103 miles (165.5 km) was completed on January 13, 2001. There were 206 million trips on Metrorail in fiscal year 2006, meaning about 564,000 passengers use the system every day.WMATA Facts (PDF) The system is the second busiest in the nation, behind only the New York City Subway, with about 700,000 trips taken on a typical weekday.

Washington's Metrorail is well known for its design by Chicago architect Harry Weese. Weese's design is an exemplar of late-20th-century modern architecture. With its heavy use of concrete, and the repetitive nature of its design motifs, it demonstrates aspects of Brutalism, which, in Washington, is also exemplified by the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building. Simultaneously, with its coffered groin and barrel vaults, it reflects the neoclassical style of architecture that can arguably be described as the closest thing to an "official" federal style in Washington, as demonstrated in such buildings as the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the former U.S. Patent Office building (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum), by Robert Mills; the White House, by James Hoban; and the Beaux-Arts Lincoln Memorial, by Henry Bacon.

A Red Line train services Metro Center, the hub of the system.

The upper level platforms at Metro Center.

Metrorail network

The network was designed with a spoke-hub distribution paradigm, which makes the subway ideal for getting from a suburb to any part of the city, or vice versa, but unattractive for suburb-to-suburb travel; groups have proposed a Purple Line to remedy this. The system is also noteworthy as a system with a limited number of lines that nevertheless makes extensive use of interlining (running more than one line on the same track).

Metrorail system map.

There are five operating lines and one planned line:

Half of the system, including most of the stations in the District of Columbia, is underground, but most suburban stations are on elevated rails or at grade. In the case of the western Orange Line, the tracks run in the median of Interstate 66. However, the deepest stations in the system are not in Washington, but at the northeastern end of the Red Line, with Wheaton having the longest escalator in the western hemisphere at 230 vertical feet (70 meters) and 508 feet long (155 meters) diagonally, and Forest Glen being even deeper than that. It is so deep, the only way to the surface is by elevator.Pipeshaft - Forest Glen

Smithsonian station.

The system is not centered on any single station, but Metro Center is considered the hub, as it is the busiest station, located at the intersection of the three busiest lines, and the Metro Information Center and Gift Shop are located there. Other notable transfer stations include Gallery Place/Chinatown, which is located by the Verizon Center; Stadium-Armory, which is located by RFK Stadium where the Washington Nationals and DC United play; and L'Enfant Plaza, the only station in the system with four lines and which supplies easy access between downtown Washington and Virginia.

Smithsonian station lies under the National Mall and is the busiest station for tourists. Other stations of note for tourists are Capitol South, just three blocks from the United States Capitol, and McPherson Square, which is just two blocks from the White House. Even though Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan's name claims that it's the proper station to use to visit the National Zoo, Cleveland Park is not only a few feet closer, but uphill from the zoo, making it easier to arrive at the Zoo via Cleveland Park and leave via Woodley Park-Zoo (Adams Morgan is in fact half a mile away and actually closer to the Columbia Heights station.) The Pentagon station once offered direct below-ground access to the Pentagon. This direct entrance was eliminated as part of the Pentagon Renovation Program, and was replaced with a new above-ground entrance facility.

Numerous colleges and universities are accessible through the Metro, including:
* American University from Tenleytown-AU
* Catholic University from Brookland-CUA
* The University of the District of Columbia from Van Ness-UDC
* Gallaudet University from New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U
* Georgetown University from Rosslyn (via shuttle bus)
* Georgetown University Law Center from Judiciary Square and Union Station
* The George Washington University from Foggy Bottom-GWU
* George Mason University from Vienna/Fairfax-GMU (Main Campus) and Virginia Square-GMU (Arlington Campus)
* Howard University from Shaw-Howard Univ
* The University of Maryland, College Park from College Park-U of Md
* Marymount University from Ballston-MU
* Trinity University from Brookland-CUA

Since 1999, Metro has run a special service pattern on July 4 to accommodate movements into and out of the city for Independence Day activities on the National Mall. This generally involves switching the southern terminals for the Blue and Yellow Lines (i.e., Blue Line trains terminate at Huntington, while Yellow Line trains terminate at Franconia-Springfield), terminating the Blue Line at the Rosslyn upper level, and sending Orange Line trains to both Largo Town Center and New Carrollton. Since 2002, Smithsonian station has been closed all day on July 4 due to both of its entrances being located within the secured perimeter established around the Mall.MetroRail 4th of July Service Patterns from Oren's Transit Page

WMATA has a stated goal of integration of its rail and bus networks. In 2004, SmarTrip readers were installed on all buses, enabling paperless transfers between lines and with the rail system.Metro also offers numerous connections to other transit systems and modes of transportation in Washington, D.C..

History

Intersection of ceiling vaults at Metro Center.

During the 1960s, there were plans for a massive freeway system in Washington. However, opposition to this freeway system grew and the funds to construct it were reallocated toward construction of the Metro system.

Construction on the metro began in 1969, with groundbreaking on December 9. The system opened March 27, 1976 with 4.6 miles (7.4 km) available on the Red Line with five stations from Rhode Island Ave to Farragut North. The final 103 mile (166 km), 83 station system was completed with the opening of the Green Line segment to Branch Ave on January 13, 2001. This does not mean the end of the growth of the system: a 3.22 mile (5.18 km) extension of the Blue Line to Largo Town Center and Morgan Boulevard stations opened on December 18, 2004, the first in-fill station (New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U on the Red Line between Union Station and Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood) opened November 20, 2004, and planning is underway for an extension to Dulles Airport.WMATA History (PDF)

The system's first segment opened in the District of Columbia, with Arlington, Virginia being linked to the system on July 1, 1976; Montgomery County, Maryland on February 6, 1978; Prince George's County, Maryland on November 20, 1978; and Fairfax County, Virginia and Alexandria, Virginia on December 17, 1983.

The highest ridership for a day was June 9, 2004, with 850,636 trips; thousands of people went to Washington to view the funeral procession of Ronald Reagan, and to the U.S. Capitol to view his body as it lay in state. The previous recordholding day was January 20, 1993, President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. March, April, June and July of 2006 have broken records in terms of ridership, with seven of the ten highest ridership days occurring in these months.June holds the single-month ridership record with 18,745,046 total riders, and the record for highest average weekday ridership with 747,329 weekday trips. USA Today attributes the high ridership of the Washington Metro and other transit systems around the country to rapidly rising gasoline costs during that time.

A train of Rohr cars arrives at Cheverly station.

Metro's rail fleet consists of 952 75-foot (23 m) rail cars, delivered in five shipments.

The original order of 300 rail cars was manufactured by Rohr Industries, with delivery in 1976. These cars are numbered 1000-1299, and were rehabilitated in the mid-1990's by Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie and Metro at the Brentwood Shop in Washington. The second order, of 76 cars, was through Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie (Breda), with delivery in 1982. These cars are numbered 2000-2075, and were rehabilitated in 2003 and 2004 by Alstom in Hornell, New York. The third order consisted of 290 cars, also from Breda, with delivery in 1987. These cars are numbered 3000-3289 as originally delivered, and are currently undergoing rehabilitation by Alstom in Hornell, New York. The fourth order consisted of 100 cars from Breda, numbered 4000-4099. These cars were delivered in 1991. The fifth order consisted of 192 rail cars from a joint venture of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) of Spain and AAI Corporation of Hunt Valley, Maryland. These cars are numbered 5000-5191, with delivery from 2001 through 2004. Most recently, Metro has ordered 184 rail cars from Alstom, the same company that is rehabilitating the Breda cars. Delivery is expected to begin in late 2005, with initial service expected in 2006. These cars are currently undergoing acceptance testing. The new cars will have their body shells built in Barcelona, Spain and have assembly completed in Hornell, New York.Information on the cars from The Schumin Web Transit Center

Metrorail signaling and operation

During normal operation on revenue tracks (used for passenger services), trains are controlled by an automatic train control system (ATC) which accelerates and brakes the train automatically without operator intervention. However, all trains are manned with train operators who close the doors (they can optionally be set to open automatically), make station announcements, and supervise their train. The operator can switch a train into manual mode and operate the train manually as needed.

Safety and security

Rules and regulations

No Food Or Drink On Metro.

Metro strictly forbids riders from eating or drinking while on board a Metrorail train or while in a station. While arrests are rare, one widely publicized incident occurred in 2000 when a 12-year old girl was arrested when she refused to stop eating french fries, while in the Tenleytown-AU Metro station. Metro's zero-tolerance policy when it comes to food, as well as trash and other forms of disorder, embodies the broken windows philosophy of crime reduction. Metro's attempts to reduce crime, combined with how the station environments were designed with crime prevention in mind , has contributed to the fact that Washington Metro is among the safest and cleanest subway systems in the United States. This philosophy also extends to use of station restroom facilities. Metro's long-standing policy restricts use of restrooms to only employees in order to prevent undesirable activity such as graffiti. Station managers may make exceptions for customers with small children, the elderly, or the disabled.

Metro Transit Police

The Metro Transit Police Department is charged with ensuring the safety of Metro customers and employees. Transit Police officers patrol the Metrorail system and Metrobuses, and have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the 1,500 square mile Metro service area for crimes that occur on or against Transit Authority facilities, or within 150 feet of a Metrobus stop.http://www.wmata.com/about/board_gm/compact.cfm#Police The Metro Transit Police Department is the only American police agency that has local police authority in three different "state" jurisdictions (Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia).Metro Transit Police Department

Accidents

The November 3, 2004 accident at Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station.

The accident at Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station as seen the next day from the station mezzanine. Trains were sharing the same track through the station at this time.

There have been three collisions reported on the Metrorail system since its opening.
* On January 13, 1982, a train backed up and derailed at a malfunctioning interlocking between the Federal Triangle and Smithsonian stations. In attempting to restore the train to the rails, the supervisors backed it up, but they did not notice that another car had also derailed. In attempting to reverse the train, the other rail car slid off the track and slammed into a tunnel support, killing three people and injuring many others, becoming the worst accident that has ever occurred on the Metrorail system in over 25 years of operation. Coincidentally, this accident occurred at the same time as Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge during a major snowstorm, producing probably the worst transit situation in Washington history. The train accident was compounded by lack of availability of ambulances, which at the time were all trying to reach the 14th Street Bridge disaster.
* On January 6, 1996, during the Blizzard of 1996, a train operator was killed when a train overran the Shady Grove station and crashed into a parked train. An NTSB investigation found the following factors that contributed to the accident:
** at the time of the accident, there was a policy then in effect that prohibited supervisors from granting employees permission to operate trains manually (even in inclement weather), and
** the parked train was located on the same track that was being used by inbound trains, instead of in a safer location. Report of the 1996 crash from the NTSB
* On November 3, 2004, an out-of-service train lost its brakes, rolled backwards into the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Station, and hit a revenue train servicing the station. No one was killed, but 20 people were injured. The 2004 accident reinforced the finding from the 1996 accident of the tendency of Metro rail cars built or rehabilitated prior to 2001 to telescope when involved in a head-on collision. A 14-month investigation on the accident concluded that the train operator was most likely less-than-fully alert as the train rolled backwards into the station, on the grounds that the train had rolled backwards for over 78 seconds and that the train operator was at the end of an overtime shift that had been preceded by a night of interrupted sleep. Safety officials estimated that had the train been full, at least 79 would have died. Since the findings of the investigation, the train operator was dismissed from Metro, and Metro officials plan to add rollback protection to 300 cars.

In 2005, then-General Manager Richard A. White led efforts to improve accountability and dialogue with customers. This included independent audits, town hall meetings, online chats with White and other management officials, and improved signage in stations. Despite these efforts, however, the Board of Directors announced White's dismissal on January 11, 2006. Dan Tangherlini replaced White as interim General Manager, effective February 16, 2006.Riders can use SmarTrip – a rechargeable, contactless stored-value smart card issued by WMATA – for electronic payment of fares on Metrorail and Metrobus, as well as the DC Circulator. In addition, on June 28, 2004, SmarTrip became the only way to pay parking fees at Metro-operated lots.

At Metro sales facilities, customers can buy SmarTrip cards for a base price of five dollars, with no initial fare value. WMATA also sells cards by vending machine at select transfer stations and at stations with parking facilities; such cards cost ten dollars, and come with an initial five dollars of stored fare value.http://www.wmata.com/riding/smartrip.cfm Customers may add value to SmarTrip at farecard machines equipped with a SmarTrip target.

Because the Exitfare machines installed near station fare gates predate the introduction of SmarTrip, customers whose cards have insufficient value are permitted to leave the system with a negative balance. This negative balance must, however, be paid before the card may be used again to enter the system. One may not exit a Metro parking facility with a negative balance on the SmarTrip card; the card must contain sufficient value to pay the full fee in order to exit the Metro parking lot.

Funding

While fares and advertising provide some revenue for Metro, the bulk of funding is contributed by each jurisdiction that it serves, as well as by the states of Maryland and Virginia. Fares and other revenue fund 57.6% of daily operations while state and local governments fund the remaining 42.4%. Washington Metro is unique among major public transportation systems in having no dedicated source of funding. Instead, each year WMATA must ask each local jurisdiction to contribute funding, which is determined by a formula that equally considers three factors: (1) population density, as of the 2000 Census; (2) average weekday ridership; (3) number of stations in each jurisdiction. Under this formula, the District of Columbia contributes the greatest amount (34%), followed by Montgomery County (18.7%), Prince George's County (17.9%), Fairfax County (14.3%), Arlington County (9.9%), the City of Alexandria (4.7%), the City of Falls Church (0.3%), and the City of Fairfax (0.3%).WMATA Subsidy Allocation Methodology (PDF)

It is often argued that this formula places disproportionate burden on District of Columbia taxpayers. WMATA and District officials have pleaded that the Federal government should contribute more funding, reflecting the fact that a substantial portion of the Federal workforce use Metro to commute from the suburbs. Tourists also comprise a significant portion of ridership and Metro provides an instrumental role in transporting people during special events, such as presidential inaugurations. As well, a substantial number of stations located in the District serve these purposes rather than serving local residents.

In 2005, U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, introduced a bill in Congress that offers WMATA a ten-year federal funding infusion worth $1.5 billion. This offer is contingent upon WMATA implementing more accountability measures, providing the Federal government two seats on its board of directors, and on enactment of legislation by the District of Columbia and the states of Maryland and Virginia to permanently provide WMATA with dedicated sources of revenue worth $150 million per year. The bill passed in the House of Representatives on July 2006 but it still needs to pass in the Senate.However, the fate of the proposal hangs in doubt; in February 2006 in the Virginia House of Delegates, Republican members of the House Finance Committee opposed to new blocked WMATA funding legislation. Rumors have abounded for years about transit service out to Dulles and points west either by Metro or other systems. There was even a study in the early 1990s that proposed a series of civil tiltrotor stations as a possible commuting option from places such as Reston, Manassas, Leesburg, Columbia, and other points in the greater Washington area.Civil Tiltrotor Feasibility Study for the New York and Washington Terminal Areas (PDF) Like many other plans, this stopped at the initial assessment stage for fiscal and political reasons. Light rail systems and express bus lines have also been floated as a possibility within the District or Northern Virginia. Plans to extend Metrorail to Dulles have been in the works since the beginning of the system's construction. A test station was built at the airport around 1970 and was located some 28 feet below the parking lot areaMetrorail Track and Structures at Clouse.org, but until recently, rail transport there was not a reality.

Finally, in 2002, plans were formalized to bring a 23-mile extension to the Orange Line from near the West Falls Church station to Route 772 in Loudoun County, Virginia. This would mean a mass transit connection from Washington proper to the important business centers of Reston and Tysons Corner, and most importantly, provide a link to Dulles Airport. On June 10, 2004, the Federal Transit Administration approved the first phase of the project to begin. It is scheduled to reach Wiehle avenue in 2011 and VA route 772 (beyond Dulles Airport) in 2015.Dulles Corridor

Bi-County Transitway

Controversy has attended proposals to build a Purple Line, now designated the Bi-County Transitway by state planners, linking Bethesda and Silver Spring, Maryland, thereby connecting the two branches of the Red Line to the north of Washington by rail. It would later be possibly extended to New Carrollton, Maryland, thus also connecting branches of the Green and Orange lines, and eventually around the entire Capital Beltway, linking all the Metro endpoints together, as seen in a proposal from the Sierra Club.Purple Line proposal from the Sierra Club This line has been conceived as a light rail line traveling along a private right-of-way for at least some portion of its length, as an elevated monorail, and also as a rapid bus line. The proposal has met fierce opposition from some of the residents along the certain areas of the line (see NIMBY). Others have noted difficulties in obtaining the funds to build it.Bickering over Purple Line could cause funding woe — Gazette.net

Light rail and other extensions

Metro broke ground on a light rail line in the Anacostia area on November 13, 2004. The project is a demonstration to examine the usefulness of building a light rail line that would help people who live too far away from subway stations by ferrying them to the main Metro network. The line consists of 2.7 miles (4.3 km) of track and six stations. Service is expected to begin in autumn 2006.

Maryland has proposed extending the Green line from the current northern terminus in Greenbelt to connect with Baltimore-Washington International Airport via Fort Meade, home of the National Security Agency. The link would be built in the next two decades to accommodate some of the growth expected in the Howard and Anne Arundel County regions as jobs move in with the recent military reorganization. The longest escalator in Europe is in the Park Pobedy station in the Moscow Metro. There are several escalator "systems" of greater length in Hong Kong.
* The automated messages of "doors opening," "doors closing," and the more insistent "please stand clear of the doors, thank you" were recorded in 1996 by District resident Sandy Carroll. In February 2006, following an open contest, Metro officials chose Randi Miller, a car dealership employee from Woodbridge, Virginia, to record new announcements.
* Huntington is the only station in the system whose name contains none of the letters in the word 'mackerel', just as there is only one station in the London Underground whose name contains no letters in 'mackerel', St John's Wood.
* Unlike on the New York City Subway, it is not the custom to pass between cars through the end doors. Under normal conditions, only Metro employees and Transit Police use these doors.

References

External links

* Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Official site
* Metro Transit Police Official site
* StationMasters Online Neighborhood maps and panoramic photographs of each station
* MetroRiders.Org Metro Customer Advocacy Group
* Metro Compact
* Building the Washington Metro

Washington Metro: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents