BREAKING: Metro is considering extended closures of lines

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/tr ... ge%2Fstory

News outlets are reporting comments from Jack Evans that Metro is indeed considering extended closures of entire (segments?) of lines in order to address serious maintenance issues that Metro now admits cannot be addressed solely by night and weekend trackwork. Evans gave as an example a 6 month closure of the Blue line, though he said that was just an example of a line and of a length of time.

Yawn. Wait until there's a legitimate plan from Wiedefeld before commenting. Evans can say all he wants, but he's not in charge of operational planning. His example of shutting down the Blue Line is silly.

However, if Wiedefeld is planning to make greater use of weekend shutdowns of sections of stations instead of single-tracking, then that could be good.

I know Chicago did something like that where they shut down a subway line for a year or several months to do maintenance. When Paul Wiedefeld did a Q&A "live chat" back in December he was asked if he would ever consider shutting down entire lines for several months and his word for word quoted response was this:

Paul Wiedefeld Q&A wrote:
Paul Wiedefeld: "I definitely want to look at that and see what our options are. We have to take a really hard look at it."

Paul Wiedefeld: "We have to look at it in a context of a number of things. One is how the world works today. With Uber and Uber-lite services, are there things we could tap into at the lower end of the service. Particularly at low points in the service period, when there aren't many people moving."

Paul Wiedefeld: "I hear people say, I won't even use service for a week, I'll drive. But we also have people who don't have access to cars and that would be a big deal because they have to rely on us. I want to think outside the box on that."

Paul Wiedefeld: "I think it's not only from the customer experience perspective. We have to look at it from the efficiency standpoint. How efficient can we be if we are ramping up for three hours and ramping down? Whereas long term your production level goes up. It can go better. What are the finances associated with that, have we done the math?"

Paul Wiedefeld: "So its not just the customer side but is there a smarter way to do that. maybe there will be some pain but not as much as we think there will be. Maybe we can save money and do it quicker."

CB:

The Chicago Transit Authority has closed two routes for major reconstruction and rehabilitation.

The Lake-Englewood-Jackson Park Green Line routes were closed between January 9, 1994 and May 12, 1996.
These two routes (Lake Street and South Side L) used substantial portions of on average 100 year old elevated
structures and went through a total reconstruction project over that two year four month span.

The Dan Ryan (Expressway) Route opened in 1969 and more recently went through a major track renewal and
station re-construction project alongside Illinois DOT roadway reconstruction. There was a five month shutdown
back in 2011 for indepth work to be peformed to improve this section of the CTA Red Line. This route can be a
reasonable comparison to Metro because of the age of the route and the project of rehab and reconstruction.

See: http://www.chicago-l.org/history/CTA4.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/danryan.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Everyone:

It is good to see that Metro is considering closing segments of or perhaps entire routes for indepth rehabilitation
or reconstruction for work that will need substantial time to be accomplished more then what weekend closures
will allow. There is going to be inconvenience for some - but in the long run all Metrorail riders will benefit.

MACTRAXX

Good. It's the only way to get anything done, and it needs to be done. 20 years of deferring maintenance has led to this. Working only after hours and on weekends gets them 2 steps forward, while the system crumbles 4 steps forward at the same time. No jurisdiction wants to give them more money right now due to their irresponsible management for the last 2 decades. They need to demonstrate that giving them more money will produce actual results. Taking steps like this shows they're serious about it and the money will be worth something. So I hope this happens. I would rather find alternate routes to work than die in train crash.

GM Wiedefeld has issued a statement alluding to this, seemingly trying to get ahead of all of the news coverage generated by Evans' statement. http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/metro_ ... m?AID=5514

I don't think that this can really be judged until we see an actual plan of action, as right now it seems all we have are some talking points. Assuming WMATA is actually serious about extended closures, I am especially interested in seeing the plan for alternative transportation. It needs to be more than "telecommute or use Uber." Metro is public transportation and people - often those with no other options - rely on it. Any alternative plan in the event of an extended shutdown needs to be public transportation as well.

jkovach wrote:I don't think that this can really be judged until we see an actual plan of action, as right now it seems all we have are some talking points. Assuming WMATA is actually serious about extended closures, I am especially interested in seeing the plan for alternative transportation. It needs to be more than "telecommute or use Uber." Metro is public transportation and people - often those with no other options - rely on it. Any alternative plan in the event of an extended shutdown needs to be public transportation as well.

There are always bicycles, I guess.

I am curious as to what parts of the system need the most work - I would assume in general the older ones have more problems, but that might not always be true.

The second question is whether they intend to try and bid some of the work out instead of relying upon in-house people.

A final question is whether they would be able to get the requisite work done keeping everything open during "core" hours, but shutting down parts of the system much earlier in the evening to allow for more maintenance - say 8PM instead of 12AM. I guess we will have to wait and see..

You have to remember when comparing the Dan Ryan Chicago 'L' Red Line section to WMATA is that people there had alternative rail in the The Lake-Englewood/Jackson Park Green Line. The plan there was to put the Red on the elevated Green always going to Englewood, and the Green would exclusively serve Jackson Park. The Dan Ryan parts would be shuttled to Garfield station, where both Red and Green were servicing.

Not only that, the buses that shuttled from the Dan Ryan had two different modes:

• Morning through evening, shuttles would be dedicated between Garfield and the various stations, so folks at 96th would be expressed to Garfield and back.
• Late at night, a separate shuttle would hit all the stations up an down the line plus Garfield.

When the Green Line was being reconstructed, they just had the feeder buses drop off at Red Line stations instead of Green Line for a while.

In this case, there's not much duplication in DC, so shuttle buses can only go for short sections.

They can use this shut down time to add another tunnel around Rosslyn to re-route the Blue line. Of course that probably won't happen.

I think the best approach is to shut down half of each line at a time. Maybe do the core stations first, then the suburban stations second. Closing the core stations would still allow people to get close enough to downtown where they can switch to an alternate form of transportation or even to a different metro line that is still open. Then when the suburban portion is shut down.. it would be the same. People can use alternate transportation to get to the edge of the city.. then take Metro the rest of the way.

I really think that is the least disruptive way to do it.

"Chris Brown"
They can use this shut down time to add another tunnel around Rosslyn to re-route the Blue line. :-D Of course that probably won't happen.

The Blue line doesn't need to be rerouted, capacity increase can achieved by procuring more rolling stock

I think the best approach is to shut down half of each line at a time. Maybe do the core stations first, then the suburban stations second. Closing the core stations would still allow people to get close enough to downtown where they can switch to an alternate form of transportation or even to a different metro line that is still open. Then when the suburban portion is shut down.. it would be the same. People can use alternate transportation to get to the edge of the city.. then take Metro the rest of the way.

I really think that is the least disruptive way to do it.

Close the railroad 7 days a week no later then midnight. Stage the equipment and personal needed to do the work before closing and dispatch it to the work sites before closing. Single track the last trains heading to the yards around the work sites. Create a script that choreographs the tasks needed to be done to the minute. Do all of the above at multiple locations on the railroad at the same time.

WMATA has a new toy to speed up the process of rehabilitating ballasted track.

Sand Box John wrote:"Chris Brown"
They can use this shut down time to add another tunnel around Rosslyn to re-route the Blue line. Of course that probably won't happen.

The Blue line doesn't need to be rerouted, capacity increase can achieved by procuring more rolling stock

Not really. You seem to be forgetting about the famous "Rosslyn bottleneck" where the Orange, Blue and Silver lines all come together at once to share track. It has been a problem for a long time.. which is why there were talks to re-route the Blue line to alleviate congestion.

"Chris Brown"
Not really. You seem to be forgetting about the famous "Rosslyn bottleneck" where the Orange, Blue and Silver lines all come together at once to share track. It has been a problem for a long time.. which is why there were talks to re-route the Blue line to alleviate congestion.

The only thing famous about it, is that it does not exist. WMATA has been disseminating that propaganda for years now. That document I linked to states what has been known sense before day one. "Increase ATC designed headway from 90 seconds to 135 seconds" The only thing preventing WMATA from achieving that level of through put is rolling stock in sufficient quantities. The reason why I call that propaganda out as being bovine scatological is because I have stood on platforms in stations on two of the three trunk routes and watched trains parade past me in both directions at near 90 second headways. it was done when WMATA had fewer route miles and rolling stock in sufficient quantities.

Sand Box John wrote:"Chris Brown"
Not really. You seem to be forgetting about the famous "Rosslyn bottleneck" where the Orange, Blue and Silver lines all come together at once to share track. It has been a problem for a long time.. which is why there were talks to re-route the Blue line to alleviate congestion.

The only thing famous about it, is that it does not exist. WMATA has been disseminating that propaganda for years now. That document I linked to states what has been known sense before day one. "Increase ATC designed headway from 90 seconds to 135 seconds" The only thing preventing WMATA from achieving that level of through put is rolling stock in sufficient quantities. The reason why I call that propaganda out as being bovine scatological is because I have stood on platforms in stations on two of the three trunk routes and watched trains parade past me in both directions at near 90 second headways. it was done when WMATA had fewer route miles and rolling stock in sufficient quantities.

Yes, but that's ATC headway, under computer control. They haven't switched that fully back on yet, and I doubt they will for the next five years. Meanwhile, folks are jamming into the Silver, Orange, and Red lines in core. Hell, they need to build a shuttle between Metro Center and Gallery Place, just for that traffic. (And if you don't believe that, you obviously haven't ridden MetroRail in rush hour)

Imagine NY Subway traffic all the time in DC. It's getting there. They need to tunnel and lay down rail.

STrRedWolf wrote:You have to remember when comparing the Dan Ryan Chicago 'L' Red Line section to WMATA is that people there had alternative rail in the The Lake-Englewood/Jackson Park Green Line. The plan there was to put the Red on the elevated Green always going to Englewood, and the Green would exclusively serve Jackson Park. The Dan Ryan parts would be shuttled to Garfield station, where both Red and Green were servicing.

Not only that, the buses that shuttled from the Dan Ryan had two different modes:

• Morning through evening, shuttles would be dedicated between Garfield and the various stations, so folks at 96th would be expressed to Garfield and back.
• Late at night, a separate shuttle would hit all the stations up an down the line plus Garfield.

When the Green Line was being reconstructed, they just had the feeder buses drop off at Red Line stations instead of Green Line for a while.

In this case, there's not much duplication in DC, so shuttle buses can only go for short sections.

RW:

In the "Infuriating History of how Metro got so bad" topic I replied on how Chicago had rail route alternatives
to fall back on - in that Washingtonian article the author only mentioned bus service during the Dan Ryan re-
construction Project for some reason and left out the rail routes.

What you mention in your post - Dan Ryan trains were rerouted to Englewood (63/Ashland) over the L during
the Dan Ryan Reconstruction Project - which had past precedence because before the 1993 CTA route changes
creating the Howard-Dan Ryan Red Line it was Howard-Englewood-Jackson Park (and Lake-Dan Ryan) that were
the former routes these trains used - they just used the old connection to the State Street Subway to offer this
alternate routing - keeping that redundancy in place greatly helped the CTA during that time period.

Another factor not mentioned is having two Metra commuter rail routes that roughly parallel the Dan Ryan route:

One to two miles east - Metra Electric has stations at 71st, 79th, 87th and 95th Streets on their Main Line.
I am only mentioning the stations that are directly east of Dan Ryan stations south of the L at 63rd Street.
There are other Main Line stations - and the South Chicago Branch which itself is further to the east.

To the west there is Rock Island District service available at these stations on the RI Main Line which are:
Gresham - 820 w 87th Street (at Halsted St.) - one mile west of 87/Dan Ryan
Longwood - 95th Street and Vincennes Avenue - 1 1/4 mile west of 95/Dan Ryan
Washington Heights - 103rd and Vincennes Avenue - about 2 miles SW of 95/Dan Ryan
There is Beverly Branch (RI "Suburban Line") service at Brainerd (89th/Loomis) 1 1/2 miles west and
stations every half mile SW on that line to Blue Island - where the Metra Electric Blue Island Branch
is also available as another alternate rail route to other South Side points and Downtown Chicago.

In comparison can MARC and VRE - on their routes paralleling Metro lines - offer any form of added service
during the term of a Metrorail route closure period? Can they reasonably accommodate added riders that do
normally use Metro during any major service changes such as the recent 3/16 one day shutdown?

MACTRAXX