Van Ness-UDC (photo by Flickr user Mad African!: (Broken Sword), shared under Creative Commons license)
“Remember,” he said, “this is rush hour. Trains are arriving every two minutes.”
I remember that being true when I first arrived in Washington almost 20 years ago. The Red Line trains, almost without fail, arrived every two to three minutes during the morning and afternoon rush. This hasn’t been the case for a while, though. Metro has not said anything about cutting service, but lately, four-minute waits between rush-hour Red Line trains have been more the rule than the exception.
At least, that’s been the case when I enter the Metro system at Van Ness around 8:30 a.m. each morning. It might not seem like extending the wait time by a minute or two would make much of a difference, but when the trains arrive every four minutes instead of three, they are usually packed full, leaving little space for the riders steadily pouring into the station.
I’ve often thought that if I could spare the time, I’d spend a few mornings at the Van Ness station timing the trains to check my experiences against reality. Another Forest Hills resident had the same thought – and actually did it!
While many riders often gripe about late trains and long waits (myself included), their thoughts are only anecdotal and provide just a small snapshot in time. Therefore, I recorded some actual data to assess Metrorail performance.
Travis Maiers didn’t hang out at the station, however. He used real-time arrival information from WMATA.com. He wrote about his methods and findings for Greater Greater Washington.
Maiers confirms that it’s not my imagination. Metro’s Trip Planner shows 20 trains scheduled to travel through Van Ness toward Glenmont during the peak morning rush, which would mean an average three-minute wait between trains. Maiers says that during 19 days of observations in July (12 of them monitoring Van Ness), this happened just three times. On four days, only 14 to 15 trains passed through.
What do you think of Maiers’ findings? What changes have you observed on the Red Line?
– Tracy Johnke
Lois Steinberg says
Glad someone proved what we regulars already suspected: service has tanked. Another part of the problem is the lack of 8 car trains. By the time trains get to Van Ness they are full, yet there are 3 more stops with large numbers of commuters heading downtown. Of course, no one feels that they can’t squeeze into a car, there must be more room somewhere! What they can’t see are all the bags, backpacks, luggage taking up room. If one is lucky, the overcrowding doesn’t cause pressure on the doors so you end up being off-loaded. This morning 3 trains went through the station going north, all nearly empty, while only one train came south, packed with riders. Why can’t Metro take one of those northbound trains and switch it over – say up at Tenleytown – to heading back downtown? How long must we wait for the return of 8 car trains?
Tracy Johnke says
Yes – the elusive eight-car trains! I was just thinking this morning that I hadn’t seen one listed on the display for a few weeks now. I know Metro had announced that it was using six-car trains on Mondays and Fridays this summer so it could do some maintenance work on the cars, but it seems that has unofficially become an every day thing.
Marlene S. says
I’ve given up on Metro. I just drive to work and elsewhere. Not worth the frustration.