metro sucks
i’ve always complained about metro. i think i’ve ranted before that i think they should implode the system and start over again so that it can be better designed to handle all the riders of the system.
yesterday, there was a collision involving 2 trains on the red line. many people were injured and at least 9 people were killed. very sad 
i just read a washingtonpost blog post about the lack of information about what was going on that day. i’ve always complained about this. the metro alerts are so vague and uninformative (and often times estimate the amount of delay completely wrong! yesterday, i think it told me a 30 minutes delay on the red line…) that i’ve begun to ignore them as spam. i agree with many of the commenters of that blog post… with more information, commuters would be able to make better decisions on how they can get home from work… there would be less crowding on the stopped train lines (if people switched to alternate transportation) and most importantly, people would be less likely to bitch and complain about the delays. if people realized the seriousness of the delay, i’m sure they wouldn’t have been as upset as they might’ve been… sitting on a stopped train for over a hour thinking “mechanical failure” was stopping them! there were some commenters who were like “stop complaining about the alerts! the first priority should be to save the people stuck in the collision!” and i wholeheartedly agree! but it’s not like ALL metro employees converged on the accident! the DC metro system is quite large and involves a lot of people. and the best way for some of the other metro employees (maybe those not close to the Fort Totten station or those who work in the corporate offices) to be helpful in an emergency like this is to help maintain the remaining lines from being overwhelmed and out of control!
metro has all sorts of problems. their alert system obviously isn’t their biggest concern right now. early investigation is saying that signals to prevent collisions have begun to malfunction and could be part of the cause of the collision… so yeah, definitely need to fix that. but improving their alert system would be nice too. and while they’re at it… MORE tracks!!
June 24th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Very sad, I was just reading about the the people involved in the fatalities
I do hope Metro improves a lot of things after this: communication as well as maintenance.