Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee went down our Nation’s Capital recently and spied a sign extolling the supposedly rat-free environment of the WMATA’s Metro. Her subsequent blog post on City Room about the sign has spurred on a 112-comment debate comparing DC’s Metro to New York’s subway. As I’ve written in the past, I’m no fan of the WMATA. Its cleanliness, however, is about the only thing it has going for it. [City Room]
When it comes to subways, the concept of “on time” is a rather amorphous one. Most New Yorkers would consider the subway to be on a time if a train were pulling into a station and getting ready to open its doors right as we were making our way down (or up) the staircase to the platform. In reality — pesky thing that — the folks who run subways have a stricter definition of “on time” that even involves some schedules, and according to recent reports, New York is faring pretty well with that “on time” thing.
The recent report to which I am referring is one that comes from Washington, D.C. The Metro, according to WTOP News, is suffering from a performance gap. More trains are arriving off schedule. Adam Tuss has more:
On the rails, Metro has set a goal of 95 percent when it comes to on-time peak service during the morning and afternoon rush periods. The actual on-time performance statistics during November, the latest month Metro crunched its numbers, show 85 percent of trains were on-time for a.m. service, a full 10 percentage points off. Even lower at 83 percent was p.m. service.
By itself, that’s not a very impressive figure. When we start to compare it to New York, it looks even worse. According to the most recent NYCT performance indicators, the numbers for 2007 were down compared to 2006, but trains were still running on time — that is, within five minutes of their scheduled times — 93 percent of the time for the first eight months of 2007.
So there, Washington! Take that.
Now, I’m sure some of you are wondering why I’m making such a big deal about this. Just this week I finished Zachary Schrag’s The Great Society Subway, an excellent history of the D.C. Metro. In it, Schrag highlights on more than one occasion the fact that the Metro’s planners didn’t want the system to be like New York’s; rather, they wanted to be better than New York’s.
I’ll give the book a proper review next week, but after reading how D.C. officials, who lord over what I consider to be a very nice-looking subway that offers mediocre service, consider their system far superior to New York’s, it’s comforting to get concrete information that Washington’s system isn’t as good as New York. For all our complaints about service, the MTA is better at being “on time,” whatever that means.
Before getting to the record low two weekend service changes, let’s journey down to Washington, D.C. for a brief jaunt. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority just unveiled one whopper of a fare hike, and it certainly makes you appreciative of the inevitable fare that the MTA’s board will pass next week.
Basically, here’s the situation. Unlike the MTA, the WMATA has no dedicated source of revenue and instead relies on fare box intake as well as relatively meager contributions from the Commonewealth of Virginia and the great state of Maryland. The fare increase is needed to shore up a budget that faces a 2008 deficit of $109 million. The fare hike details, courtesy of Lena H. Sun’s article in The Washington Post:
After months of contentious debate, the board compromised in a 5 to 1 vote that will raise the subway rush-hour boarding charge by 30 cents, to $1.65 per trip, and increase daily parking fees, which are as high as $4, by 75 cents for six months. The board has an option to raise parking fees an additional quarter after that. Virginia member T. Dana Kauffman cast the sole opposing vote
The fare and fee hikes are scheduled to take effect Jan. 6 and would be the first such increases in four years, officials said. There are no increases for off-peak subway fares or MetroAccess…
As a result, rush-hour riders, who make up the biggest portion of daily users, will experience the largest increases. A trip from the Vienna Metrorail station to Dupont Circle would increase from $3.65 to $4.35; a trip from Shady Grove to Tenleytown would go from $3.35 to $4.
Percentage-wise, these increases are astronomical. The base fare increases by 22 percent; the fares from suburban stations will increase by approximately 19 percent. In comparison, the cost for a 30-Day Unlimited MetroCards is increasing by 6.5 percent.
With the WMATA’s tier fare structure comes a suburban vs. urban debate. Board representatives from Virginia and Maryland say that their suburban constituents are against these astronomical increases and are open to the idea of sitting in soul-crushing DC-area traffic to avoid paying up to $8.70 a day for a round trip on Metro. Those commuters who park-and-ride could see weekly increases of up to $10.75 a week. Yikes.
Once again, no matter how inept the MTA can be sometimes, all things considered, we have a pretty sweet subway in New York, fare hikes and all.
And now a segue.
Luckily for you, that pretty sweet subway system tones down the service advisories for the holidays. Thank the tourists. There are only two service alerts this weekend, and neither of them are all that inconvenient.
From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, December 15 and Sunday, December 16, Bronx-bound 4 trains run express from 149th Street to Burnside Avenue due to cable work north of 149th Street station.
From 12:01 a.m., Saturday, December 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 17, Brooklyn-bound D trains run express from 36th Street to Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue due to switch renewal north of 9th Avenue.
The WMATA’s board voted today to raise fares for the D.C. Metro. The increases are very substantial with the rush hour base fare increasing by 22 percent and the maximum fare going up by nearly 16 percent. It certainly makes our upcoming fare hike pale in comparison. More on this story later. [Washington Post]
So the MTA’s fare hike hearings are suffering from something of a PR backlash. As I noted on Monday, MTA board members — those very same board members who don’t ride the subways but have to vote for the fare hike next month — haven’t bothered to show up to the hearings. That’s certainly the way to win over a very skeptical public.
In fact, the non-attendance has gotten so out of hand that one legislator is proposing stripping absentee board members of their votes. Rory Lancman, a Democratic Assembly representative from Queens, has written a bill that would bar board members from voting on the fare hike if they haven’t attended at least 50 percent of the hearings. Lancman, an avid opponent of the congestion fee, raises a valid point, but right now, it’s too little too late.
Meanwhile, down in the our Nation’s Capital, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is going through its very own fare hike motions. The WMATA, despite double-digit ridership growth over the last five years, claims they need a fare hike in order to maintain their current levels of service. In fact, as I noted in August, the WMATA is already threatening to cut DC’s already-pathetic late-night subway service if they don’t get the fare hike. Aw, how cute. They’re resorting to the same threats as the MTA. They want to be just like us.
In fact, they’ve even gone so far as to schedule a series of meetings in Virginia, Maryland and the District so that riders can give feedback on the fare hike proposals. Now, while our fare hike hearings suffer from a noted lack of officials, DC’s hearings have another problem: Only four people showed up to the first one yesterday.
As Lena H. Sun in the Washington Post reported, this poor turnout was probably related to the location chosen for the fare hike. The WMATA picked a conference center in Reston, VA, a DC suburb that is Metro-accessible. The conference center, however, is not at all accessible. Here’s how the WMATA’s Website recommends you get there:
By Metrorail: Orange Line to the West Falls Church station, transfer to the Fairfax Connector Bus 505 or 950 to the Reston Town Center Transit Station where a free shuttle bus will leave at 6 and 6:30 p.m. to the public hearing. Fairfax Connector will provide free shuttle bus service from the public hearing to the Reston Town Center Transit Station.
Got that? Take the train to a bus to a free shuttle bus to a public hearing. I don’t think the WMATA has set up enough hoops through which it expects the public to leap. For her part, WMATA board member Catherine Hudgins said it was “possible” that the location may have contributed to the poor turnout. Ya think?
So as New York and the MTA go through a few growing pains on the long and torturous path to a seemingly-inevitable fare hike, at least the MTA has picked places that are rider-friendly. No one shows up to listen to the complaints, but in New York, the people are out in force. In Washington, where the WMATA is involved, it’s a whole different beast all together.
On Sunday afternoon, I headed off from Brooklyn to the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Alphabet City’s Tompkins Square Park. Generally, the best way for to go is via the F train to 2nd Ave. It’s a short walk from 1st Ave. and Houston to Tompkins Square.
But it’s the weekend, and things never go as planned on the weekends. Manhattan-bound F trains were running along the A tracks from Jay St./Borough Hall to West 4th. So I had to take the F to West 4th and then switch to a Brooklyn-bound F train making the stops in Manhattan. That Brooklyn-bound train showed up right away, and this weekend service advisory cost me just a few minutes of extra travel.
In New York, we tend to grumble and groan about the myriad service changes. We never know which train is running when and where. But as I silently bemoaned the endless service changes, I realized things aren’t much better elsewhere.
Take China. As The Times pointed out on Sunday, it’s a different — and dirtier — world across the Pacific. With the Olympics headed their way in just under a year, China is panicking. For the largest nation in the world, the Olympics will serve as a coming out party. After years of following an isolationist foreign policy, China will welcome emissaries from all over the globe.
As part of the Olympics, the Chinese are constructing a new subway line at breakneck speed. But they’re also have problems with customer service on the current rail systems, Reuters reported last week:
China is trying to stamp out protests over rail delays ahead of the Beijing Olympics, threatening passengers with legal action if they stay aboard their train once it has reached its destination. “Refusing to leave the train will be regarded as an illegal act endangering train safety,” the China News said, citing a long list of unlawful measures proscribed by central authorities.
There have been several instances of Chinese passengers refusing to leave their trains after serious delays, demanding compensation and an apology from state-run railway operators…In the report, jointly released by the ministry and the Public Security Bureau, passengers must conform in order to ensure a safe and orderly environment before the Games taking place in the capital in August next year.
Yikes. I’d hate to end up in a Chinese prison over a train protest.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a city with just five subways lines, every single line had a problem on Sunday. According to the WMATA, five different incidents of smoke and fire on the tracks or in equipment rooms led to rampant delays all day. This is of course analogous to the subway floods from a few weeks ago that knocked out nearly all of the subway lines.
So as another week begins — the last one before the Labor Day holiday — we should take comfort in knowing that New York is not alone in dealing with subway problems. But more importantly, the MTA is listening to its riders and subway bloggers. They’re using report cards to grade lines, and they’re keeping their eyes and ears on the pulse of the riders. We have a great subway system with room for improvement and a whole bunch of leaders willing to take the steps to improve it. And that is always a good thing.
Photo: Firefighters in DC work to restore order to the Metro. (Courtesy of WUSA 9)
My former Woodley Park Metro stop lies empty. (Photo courtesy of flickr user DruhScoff)
Allow me to journey out of New York City for a little while and away from the beleaguered MTA. Allow me to depart from congestion fee victories and communications upgrades until this afternoon. Let’s instead turn to my former haunt (for ten months, at least): Washington, D.C.
I’ve written before on the WMATA and my time in Washington. What I’ve never mentioned here is that the WMATA was a contributing factor for my utter dislike of my time residing in the Nation’s Capital.
While ostensibly a subway system, the WMATA is infuriatingly annoying if you rely on it to get around. After peak hours are over — generally around 8 p.m. — wait times shoot up and forget late nights. The system shuts down at midnight on weeknights and 3 a.m. on the weekends, but if you want to get home around then, you have to leave an hour for travel. It was nearly always faster for me to walk the 2.8 miles uphill from the Kennedy Center to my apartment following performances than it was take the Metro.
Meanwhile, the system features two-track tunnels and no express service. While this may not seem like a big deal, the composition of the DC population makes it such. During government hours, numerous stops are very crowded as Congressional staff scurry to and from work. But after hours, these stops — and many others in downtown DC — empty out completely. Gone are the government workers, but the trains still open and close their doors at stations where literally no one gets on or off. When they don’t run extra trains after Nationals games and the crowded trains stop at empty stations and discharge no one, frustration levels are bound to rise.
And in terms of buses, when they aren’t busy running over pedestrians, they aren’t adhering to any set schedule. Night owl service is a joke, and buses just aren’t a reliable means of transportation in the city.
So with all of that in mind, I was amused and dismayed when this post on Subchat led me to a Washington Post article nothing that the WMATA may cut nighttime Metro service and replace it with Night Owl bus service. In no understatement, this is a stunning blow to residents living within the city limits of the District of Columbia.
Metro GM John B. Catoe Jr. gives the typical excuses for the consideration. He cites saving on costs, the seemingly declining popularity of late-night Metro trains and the need to lengthen the maintenance window for trains and stations. Opponents — and there are many — note that DC bus service isn’t an adequate replacement for Metro service, that more drunk drivers will be on the road late at night, and that subway systems in real cities don’t close early. As one rider puts it, “Metro needs to expand to far beyond what it’s doing now.”
The response on DC blogs is overwhelmingly against this idea. DCist chimed in with a well-reasoned post against cutting service, and the commenters on site went crazy. Rusty of Why I Hate DC fame, not a fan of the DC Metro by any standard, noted the “the stupidity of removing late-night Metro service.”
Having been back in New York for over a year now, I have come to appreciate the MTA and New York City Transit even more than I already had. For all its flaws — and I’ve been a harsh critic this week — subway service is always running. Sure, you might have to wait a long time late at night. Sure, rush hour trains are packed. But with this vibrant city comes a vibrant subway.
Down south, Washington, DC, may cut late night service. Can you imagine New York City without late night subway service? Can you imagine the cab fares and the grumpy revelers? For all the grief the MTA gives, I would like to give them credit for this one. They run one helluva service that allows for access to everything this city has to offer. Washington’s WMATA wishes it could say the same thing.
The DC Metro carpets: So gross even a caveman wouldn’t sleep there. (Courtesy of flickr user AlbinoFlea)
After I graduated from college, I spent 10 months living and working in our Nation’s Capital. To commute to work each day, I rode D.C.’s Metro. Run by the WMATA, the D.C. Metro is the second largest subway system in the nation.
While clearly designed for suburban commuters – wait times spike right after 8 p.m. each night and some D.C. residents have declared war on the Metro – the Metro does a serviceable job of shuttling people through Washington, D.C. The D.C. Metro also has one of the most disgusting features of any subway system I have ever ridden on: carpets.
That’s right. These subway cars, trampled on by nearly 600,000 people daily, are carpeted. These carpets are of the industrial style. These aren’t plush Persian rugs; they are the carpets of your college dorm room days designed to absorb everything a college student can throw (or is that hurl?) on them and then some. But the carpets in the Metro wilt under the pressure. Just think about winter.
During the winter in New York, subway cars turn disgusting. Since the start of February, subway cars have been grimy, wet and gross as commuters track dirty snow into the subway. Now, imagine if all of that wet dirt were to be absorbed by orange carpets from the early 1970s. That’s what you get in the Washington subways. Trust me; it’s just as gross as it sounds.
But good news for the aesthetes among us: The WMATA may ditch the carpets. The new head of the WMATA John B. Catoe wants to remove the carpet and reconfigure the trains so that they conform to our NYC standards. D.C.’s NBC4 has more:
Metro’s General Manager John Catoe said the carpet is too costly and isn’t practical. He said he wants to get rid of it. Two months into the job, John B. Catoe Jr. said his outsider status has helped him spot a lot of places where the system could be made more efficient, and the floor covering is just the beginning. If he has his way, riders could soon see rail cars that look more like those in the New York City subway, with plenty of room to stand but fewer places to sit.
Catoe said he was surprised nobody had thought to remove the carpet before. After all, it is difficult to clean and needs to be replaced often, he said. The carpet was meant to add a bit of luxury to the transit system in the nation’s capital.
Catoe put it best in the article. “I can understand the thought process in the beginning: ‘This is America’s subway system — we’re going to provide carpet on the floor of the subway,'” he said. “Well, that’s like having carpet on the Mall. I mean come on, let’s be real. Nice to do. Real world tells you it’s expensive, it doesn’t look good — particularly when it snows and you bring a lot of salt in there — and it doesn’t smell very good after it gets wet.”
I railed often against those carpets when I was living in D.C. They certainly were rank during bad weather; they were generally ugly all the time. For all the criticism we level at the MTA, imagine carpeted subways. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Older Posts