The crown jewel of the transport system
Washington Post has been running a fan-tas-tic four-part series on how terribly our metro is run. While WMATA officials have been screaming about a lack of funding, this series has pointed out the repeated management gaffes, poor acquisition decisions, and questionable spending priorities that's endemic to the metro. I mean, any system where only one of the board of governors actually uses the metro regularly has some serious issues to sort out.
I think the absolutely best paragraph, though, was the following. It was explaining how the surplus of radio operators were occupying their time:
"Some of those workers would hop into a Metro truck and head to Yum's Chinese restaurant, stopping to chat up the prostitutes who worked the streets nearby, the audit found. Others filled empty hours by sleeping in Metro vehicles or in backrooms, waking up in time to punch out."
Nice life, isn't it. How do I get me one of those jobs?
Called "Off the Rails," the series can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700418.html.
I have one little anecdote to indicate how terrible this metro is. Last week, I was taking the Red line back from my dance class. The train stopped at Cleveland Park, opened its doors...AND MOVED FORWARD. I was under the impression that the trains physically could not move if their doors were open. Apparently not. Everyone in the train was staring at each other, mouths agape. The driver didn't even apologize or acknowledge the slight deviation from WMATA policy. The next stop was mine, so when the time came, I positioned myself by the door, not unlike a sprinter at the block. As *soon* as the doors opened, I sprung out, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't get caught by a moving train.
I think the absolutely best paragraph, though, was the following. It was explaining how the surplus of radio operators were occupying their time:
"Some of those workers would hop into a Metro truck and head to Yum's Chinese restaurant, stopping to chat up the prostitutes who worked the streets nearby, the audit found. Others filled empty hours by sleeping in Metro vehicles or in backrooms, waking up in time to punch out."
Nice life, isn't it. How do I get me one of those jobs?
Called "Off the Rails," the series can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700418.html.
I have one little anecdote to indicate how terrible this metro is. Last week, I was taking the Red line back from my dance class. The train stopped at Cleveland Park, opened its doors...AND MOVED FORWARD. I was under the impression that the trains physically could not move if their doors were open. Apparently not. Everyone in the train was staring at each other, mouths agape. The driver didn't even apologize or acknowledge the slight deviation from WMATA policy. The next stop was mine, so when the time came, I positioned myself by the door, not unlike a sprinter at the block. As *soon* as the doors opened, I sprung out, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't get caught by a moving train.
posted by Her Ladyship @ 3:07 PM
2 Comments:
At 7:38 PM,
Anonymous said…
well be that way, nothing to say about a lack of sleep???
Ah well
At 8:20 AM,
Anonymous said…
And how's about Tuesday, when the PM rush hour returning to Woodley Park discovered that only two of the long escalators were functioning...AND BOTH WERE GOING IN THE 'DOWN' DIRECTION!!!! When I asked one of the two Metro employees at the bottom of the stairs why they didn't just reverse the direction of one of the two functioning escalators, I didn't get a response. Eavesdropping on the two, though, I quickly discovered the reason: the switch [or whatever] to effect the change was located -- you guessed it - at the top of the stairs, and neither of the two wanted to walk up to flip it.
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