Archive: July 2006
Metro's Makeover
The first thing you notice about the experimental rail car interior that Metro is going to be testing: Wow, that carpet is clean. My second thought was that I was noticing the carpet because the car's inside seems so much more spacious. Metro officials, including Interim General Manager Dan Tangherlini and Metro board member Chris Zimmerman of Arlington, were showing off two new car designs on a side track at the Reagan National Airport Station today. One of them was the test car, which you'll start to see rolling on the Orange, Red and Green lines. Bench seat in test car. (Robert Thomson) Metro wants to know how you'll react to it -- not whether you smile or frown or stare in stunned silence. They want to see where you decide to sit or stand. It's got two sets of five bench seats, toward the center of the car. Not...
By Robert Thomson | July 31, 2006; 3:09 PM ET | Comments (33)
Early Experiences on New Wilson Bridge
From Dr. Gridlock: First, thanks for all the welcoming comments and good questions this afternoon on an inaugural Live Online discussion. I think in the future I won't gas on so much and will give more room for people's questions. This was an interesting question I didn't post during the Live Online, so I thought I'd offer it here: "Del Ray, Va.: I drive to and from Suitland every day over the Wilson Bridge and have done for the last seven years. Since the opening of the new bridge span, my morning ride has gotten easier and the trip home is much worse. I am on the Beltway for the shortest possible time, from Route 1 in Alexandria to St. Barnabas Road in Prince George's County, and the bridge is the only thing that has changed. Most mornings the eastbound merge is smooth and traffic is moving at or near...
By Robert Thomson | July 31, 2006; 2:25 PM ET | Comments (1)
Transit Developments Today
From Dr. Gridlock: There should be some interesting developments today on two transit issues: One is the testing of new Metrorail car configurations and the other is that report to Virginia state government on whether to build a rail tunnel through Tysons. I'm planning to check out Metro's preview of the rail car test, and I'll talk about that at 1 p.m. in a Live Online discussion. But if you happen to be in the neighborhood of the Reagan National Airport Station, Metro also is inviting the public to check out the new designs. Metro says two new things will be on display: -- A remodeled interior layout of an existing rail car featuring bench seating, more grab bars, and an open floor area to accommodate more passengers. (Metro will test this out on passengers and study their reactions. The issue is whether the bench seating design improves the flow...
By Robert Thomson | July 31, 2006; 6:00 AM ET | Comments (18)
Riding the DC Circulator
From Dr. Gridlock: Just got back from a test ride on the DC Circulator. I'm now a fan. It would be a bargain at the normal fare of a dollar, but you can't beat today's free ride, part of the celebration of the service's first anniversary. There are three routes through the center of Washington. I took the east-west route, starting my trip at 16th and K streets NW, riding down to Union Station and then looping back to the service's westernmost point at Wisconsin Avenue and M Street in Georgetown. Interior of the DC Circulator. (Robert Thomson) Now I know my experience so far is limited, but I can tell you that buses came along very frequently -- definitely within the advertised range fo five to 10 minutes apart. The only way I noticed you could tell that today's ride is free is to see the red cover on...
By Robert Thomson | July 28, 2006; 1:39 PM ET | Comments (2)
Ride the Circulator for Free Today
From Dr. Gridlock: Good day to check out the downtown bus routes known as the DC Circulator. Today, it's free. Part of the celebration of its first anniversary in service. Normally, it's a pretty good bargain: $1 flat fare. There's an east-west and a north-south route and a loop around the Mall. The east-west runs between Georgetown and Union Station and the north-south between Water Street and the Convention Center area. Buses run every five to 10 minutes, so there's no posted schedule. The vehicles are a very interesting design, not typically seen around here. Think I'll go out and try one now. Curious about whether the passengers are tourists or locals or a mix. Seems like it would be very useful to both....
By Robert Thomson | July 28, 2006; 11:03 AM ET | Comments (9)
Metro and Baseball
From Dr. Gridlock: The Metro transit authority puts out an interesting Top Ten List every time ridership on the rail system is high enough to break into that category. Baseball -- 2006 Nationals baseball -- is cited by Metro as an important contributing factor in four of the current Top Ten entries. The highest ranking ballgame date on the Metro list is Tuesday, June 13, when the Nationals lost 9-2 to the Colorado Rockies. On that date, which ranks at number 6 on the Top Ten list, 786,843 trips were taken on Metrorail. Next up, at number 7, is Friday, June 16, when the New York Yankees beat the Nats, 7-5. (I took Metro to RFK Stadium for that sellout, and thought downtown service to Stadium-Armory worked well. Can't talk about the post-came crowd, because I had to leave early. My wife is a Red Sox fan, and hates to...
By Robert Thomson | July 28, 2006; 7:30 AM ET | Comments (10)
Alert for Weekend Metro Riders
From Dr. Gridlock: Metro has posted its latest advisory on the service disruptions that will occur this weekend during track work on the Blue and Red lines and rail car testing on the Green Line, so I thought I'd share those. We always try to publish some of this in The Post, but I can give you more detail here. Looks like the work on the Blue Line will have the most impact on riders. This is what Metro says: Blue Line: Starting Friday at 10 p.m. and continuing to midnight Sunday, Metrorail will operate special six-car shuttle trains sharing one track between the Franconia-Springfield and King Street stations. Passengers traveling between these locations should add 35 minutes to their schedules. Once a shuttle train arrives at the King Street Metrorail station, passengers will need to transfer to a Blue or Yellow Line train at the King Street Metrorail station...
By Robert Thomson | July 27, 2006; 1:00 PM ET | Comments (5)
Dr. Gridlock's Training Wheels
Fellow Commuters, This is Robert Thomson filling in again for Steve, while he's on vacation. I just got in from four hours on Metrorail. Not your typical commute, you say? I don't commute anymore. As soon as I start using any form of transportation, I'm on the case as the new Dr. Gridlock. Monday, I circumnavigated the Capital Beltway on the outer loop, with a little detour out into Fairfax County, because I wanted to experience Braddock Road, Arlington Boulevard and Lee Highway. I love the new Wilson Bridge. Things were a bit sticky around Telegraph Road. I did that part at 5:30 p.m. Today, I switched to transit: Red Line, Orange Line and Blue Line. Plan to do more this afternoon. Maybe the part of the Blue Line that I missed, down to Springfield, or out the Green Line to Greenbelt. I know it's different from the way you...
By Robert Thomson | July 25, 2006; 12:44 PM ET | Comments (25)
Sharing Your Commute
Steve said he was thrilled with the number of responses he got to his blog entry last week in which he asked you to write in if you would be willing to share the experience of commuting with us. He said he got about 50 responses from drivers, transit riders, walkers, bicyclists and motorcyclists. The variety of commutes and their geographical distribution was remarkable. Please standby, all you volunteers. When Steve gets back from vacation next week, we plan to review all those e-mails and start getting back to you. If you'll allow, I'd like to take on some of those commutes myself. I'm going to be the new Dr. Gridlock transportation columnist, starting this coming Sunday in The Post's Metro section. (Ron Shaffer, who began the Dr. Gridlock column 20 years ago, retired last month.) As the Metro section's transportation editor for most of the past seven years, I've...
By Robert Thomson | July 24, 2006; 8:28 AM ET | Comments (27)
Lunch by Metro
I would love to share some super exciting transportation news with you guys, but it's a hot Friday in the middle of July and there just isn't any at the moment. Soooo. That gives us time to do something fun. And critical. Like finding a good place for me (and you) to have lunch. I'm hereby challenging you guys to come up with the best lunch joints within one block of a Metro station -- any Metro station. The idea is that you could run out of your office, get on Metro and grab a good lunch so quickly that your boss wouldn't even know you had gone. I sit about four inches from my boss, so these will have to be really good. So let's hear 'em ... In other news, I will be spending next week focusing exclusively on traffic issues in the three blocks between our rental...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 21, 2006; 11:05 AM ET | Comments (25)
Dulles Greenway Tolls
The private group that owns the Dulles Greenway announced yesterday evening that it wants to raise tolls almost yearly between now and 2012, when the rush hour rate would be $4.80. That's a little more than $2 more than drivers pay now and would mean about $10 a day for commuters, which works out to about $2,500 a year. The Post did a poll about a year and a half ago that asked people whether they preferred tolls or taxes to pay for new transportation projects. By 2 to 1, respondents said they prefer tolls. But I wonder how long support for tolls will last as Maryland and Virginia move to build toll lanes on almost every major road in the region. People tend to be for tolls right up to the second that their route is tolled. That's when they realize that the math isn't on their side. Let's...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 20, 2006; 10:31 AM ET | Comments (15)
Commuters Wanted
I'm on a personal quest today. I want to take as many Washington area commutes as possible, so I need your help. I need to talk to any and everyone who is willing to let me (or possibly another Post reporter) ride along with them and write about it. If you're willing to be one of these superselect, ultracool commuters, please send me an e-mail at ginsbergs@washpost.com. In other news, I'm interested in how your 100-degree commutes are going. My wife and I managed to walk almost the whole way in the shade today, which means minimal sweat. That's a good thing....
By Steven Ginsberg | July 19, 2006; 11:52 AM ET | Comments (12)
Color Wednesday Yellow
We're dropping back to a Code Yellow forecast for Wednesday. That means the air quality improves from unhealthy to moderate. No free buses. It will be a tad cooler on Wednesday, the forecasters tell us, but travelers shouldn't drop their guard. Metro says it expects to operate normally on Wednesday, but Tuesday afternoon and evening have been a bit problematic because of concerns about rail safety and power usage. All trains were operating at reduced speeds above ground. The Blue, Orange and Red lines were off schedule. All Red Line trains were operating every four minutes between Silver Spring and Grosvenor-Strathmore. All Orange Line trains were operating every eight minutes from the ends of the rail line, and all Blue Line trains were operating every nine minutes from the ends of the rail line, according to a statement from Metro. The Green Line had 12-minute delays heading toward Greenbelt. The...
By Robert Thomson | July 18, 2006; 4:56 PM ET | Comments (7)
Metro Funding and Beltway Closings
This Tom Davis bill is intriguing. As my colleague Lena Sun wrote in today's paper, the House of Representatives has agreed to give Metro $1.5 billion over 10 years if Virginia, D.C. and Maryland match that amount. Here's the story. This would be a pretty clear boon to our Metro system, but a lot of lawmakers and policy types are decrying it as a government giveaway. The Heritage Foundation asks if it's the biggest earmark in history. Obviously, this money would help our commutes. But is it hypocritical to take it and also decry Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" and other expensive earmarks? Or does the federal government have a special role in funding Metro because it carries so many of its workers? In other news, watch out for repaving work on the Beltway in Maryland that is likely to cause delays. State Highway is going to resurface more than five...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 18, 2006; 11:42 AM ET | Comments (10)
The Upside of Heat
Most suburban buses are free today, because of the Code Red forecast for air quality. It's not a good thing to have a Code Red and it's not a good thing to have a temperature reading in the 100 degree range, but it might have been a chance for some people to learn about transit and avoid some of the hassles of driving themselves. Anybody take advantage of that? I know you couldn't prove it by southbound Route 29 this morning, which was its usual bad self. An accident blocked the left lane at Burnt Mills Avenue, but there were also the usual delays in the right lane at Four Corners approaching the ramp to the Beltway's outer loop. You can get your own view of traffic conditions by checking the reports and the cameras on the traffic page. By the way, another recommendation for motorists on a Code Red...
By Robert Thomson | July 18, 2006; 8:28 AM ET | Comments (9)
Hot Commute
We just got an advisory from VRE that the heat restrictions are in effect today, and probably will be for the rest of the week, too. Here's what VRE said: CSX has implemented heat restrictions on their tracks today. This means that all trains will operate 20 mph lower than the normal maximum allowed speed. We expect delays on the Fredericksburg line to be about 10-15 minutes late at Fredericksburg unless heat inspections or other train traffic causes it to be otherwise. As these delays are cumulative, lesser delays should be seen at the intermediate stations. Slight delays may be experienced on the Manassas line as those trains operate on CSX tracks from just north of L'Enfant to just south of Alexandria. Because the temperatures are forecasted to be well above 90 degrees all week, we expect that heat restrictions will be imposed all week. This morning was a bummer...
By Robert Thomson | July 17, 2006; 1:34 PM ET | Comments (9)
Goodbye to the Wilson Bridge
You guys would be so jealous of me. While you're doing whatever it is y'all do on your summer Saturdays, I'll be standing on top of a half-built highway overpass tomorrow in the oppressive heat and humidity watching a road crew pour hot asphalt on the ground so traffic can be switched from the old Wilson Bridge to the new one. Some guys have all the luck, I know. Put aside your envy if you can and follow the advice of the bridge officials, who don't want you anywhere near the bridge tonight, tomorrow or for the rest of the weekend. Traffic on the inner loop is likely to be fairly severe and backups could stretch for miles and last for hours. The outer loop may not be so bad, but there could be some rubbernecking and other delays there. Listen to project spokesman John Undeland talk about it here....
By Steven Ginsberg | July 14, 2006; 11:38 AM ET | Comments (8)
Walking the Wilson Bridge
I just did the coolest thing. Okay, the coolest thing if you're a total transportation dork like me. (I swear I wasn't always like this.) Anyway, I was out this morning walking on the Wilson Bridges. First we took a little stroll on the new bridge -- the part where there's no traffic just yet, of course. I had three main impressions of the bridge: 1) It's very commanding. It feels and looks like something that will be around for a long, long time; 2) It's much taller than the old bridge. You almost have to lean over the side of it to look down on the tops of trucks going along the old bridge; and 3) It's really bright. Weird, I know. But the surface is white concrete instead of black asphalt and the barriers along the middle and edges are also white. It's all new and relatively clean...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 13, 2006; 2:11 PM ET | Comments (8)
Metro Rage
I just had to post this, to extend a little praise and on the possibility that maybe we can figure out who the wise Blue Line woman was -- or better yet, who these two morons she prevented from fighting were. It comes from Annie, posted in yesterday's comments: "This doesn't actually have anything to do with the Wilson Bridge, but I had to write it somewhere. I just wanted to say thank you to the woman on the Blue Line last night who broke up what was a rapidly escalating fight between two grown men. One of the men had pushed (or bumped) the other as the train became full. This lead to an argument full of swears and "Oh, you think you're a big tough guy?" The problem was, not only did it look like they were going to come to blows, there was also a child right...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 12, 2006; 10:24 AM ET | Comments (42)
Wilson Bridge Changes
By the end of this weekend, the old Wilson Bridge will no longer carry drivers. They'll all switch over to the new span (half of the Beltway is already there) and the old one will come down. In its place will be a second new span and by the time that's completed in two years the bridge will have doubled in size. The promise of all this is that those nasty bridge delays should be a thing of the past, at least for about 30 seconds before a bunch more development adds a bunch more drivers. In any case, it got me to thinking about what traffic improvements have actually made my commute better. It's a radical thought, I know. When I used to do the drive from D.C. to Manassas, the commute was made easier by a new interchange where Route 29 hits Route 28. That elminated one particularly...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 11, 2006; 12:25 PM ET | Comments (17)
Bay Bridge Traffic
So I went to see my parents last weekend, which means I cross the Bay Bridge to get to the Eastern Shore. I've been doing this drive for the 12 years I've lived in the Washington area and I don't think I've ever had an easier time on a beautiful summer weekend than I did this past weekend. I left work at 15th and L NW at 5:45 Friday afternoon (here's hoping my bosses don't read this blog), hit a little traffic in the District and then sailed right across the bridge and on to home. Yesterday, I left Onancock (on Virginia's Eastern Shore) at 4:45 p.m. and again hit zero traffic, even when I crossed the bridge around 7. Not only was I shocked not to hit any backups, but also, Route 50 wasn't even that crowded. I don't think I screamed at a single slow left-laner the whole...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 10, 2006; 2:43 PM ET | Comments (6)
Wilson Bridge Delays (Shocker)
You're going to be incredibly amazed to learn that there will be delays around the Wilson Bridge this weekend. Tonight and tomorrow night the Capital Beltway will be closed on the Maryland side of the bridge from 11.p.m. to 8.a.m. so that workers can lift steel beams over the highway. Drivers will be detoured around the highway and can expect delays of as much as half an hour, if all goes as it has in the past. The beams are part of a new interchange at Route 210 that is part of the overall bridge project. Additionally, the ramp from the southbound lanes of Interstate 295 to the outer loop of the Beltway will be closed from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. both days because of the construction. This all comes a week before another traffic meltdown in the area. Next weekend is when the inner loop of the Beltway...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 7, 2006; 11:30 AM ET | Comments (8)
More on the Purple Line
Let me add a little more information to clear up a few questions. The rapid bus service would run on dedicated lanes. I asked specifically if this would mean getting rid of any existing traffic lanes and the answer was no, with one exception. Project manager Mike Madden said a portion of Sligo Avenue, which is one of three route options for both the bus and light rail options, may have to be converted to a one-way street. While existing traffic lanes may not be in danger, some homes and businesses might be. Depending on which alignment is chosen, a number of properties may be taken, Madden and Transportation Secretary Bob Flanagan said. Laura fretted about how these buses would travel down East-West Highway, but none of the alternatives would run on that road. There are a couple different paths that the service would take that you can check out...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 6, 2006; 11:29 AM ET | Comments (8)
The Latest on the Purple Line
I just spent the better part of the day on an informational tour of the Purple Line, known officially as the Bi-County Transitway. Let me set the scene for you: Transportation Secretary Bob Flanagan, project manager Michael D. Madden and a bunch of aides walked us through the nuts and bolts of the project. Then we all piled into a mini-bus for a tour of part of the proposed transit line. I gotta tell ya, nothing beats a two hour mini-bus tour with a bunch of government officials. Aww, I'm just kidding, guys (and Erin). It was actually very helpful and was a good chance to talk at length about a project that many people think has taken a backseat to the intercounty connector. Plus, they gave us free water. Here's what we learned: It's going to be a long time before anything is built. The hoped for timetable has...
By Steven Ginsberg | July 5, 2006; 4:21 PM ET | Comments (55)
Don't Block the Metro Box
I got an intriguing e-mail today from fellow blogger Jeff Gates, who is on a personal quest to bring the "Don't Block the Box" mentality to Metro. You've seen this for years in city intersections, where there are signs urging drivers not to block the box, i.e the intersection, so that traffic can move through town. Gates sees a similar problem by Metro doors, where passengers tend to stand rather than moving to the center of cars so more passengers can get on. I've never talked to Gates before, but he seems pretty knowledgeable on this. (He even uses the word egress.) Check out his blog on it and the picture he includes of what he wants Metro doorways to look like....
By Steven Ginsberg | July 3, 2006; 11:29 AM ET | Comments (19)
