Red Line Revisited
Stuck inside a tunnel with the Red Line blues again: All that stuff that happened last weekend is going to happen again, starting at 9 o'clock Friday night and continuing through midnight Sunday.
Replacement of a switch at Van Ness Station means that inbound and outbound Red Line trains will be taking turns sharing a single track around the work zone in upper northwest Washington. That's a popular route for many people getting to and from restaurants, movies, games and other entertainments. Last weekend, I heard from many riders angered by the delays. (Metro says add at least 30 minutes to the time it normally takes on your Red Line trip.)
The transit authority, which had extra staffers out on the line, heard your complaints, but it thinks its service plan is about as good as it can get.
These are Metro's suggestions for busing around the work zone:
L2 Metrobus: The route provides service from Chevy Chase Circle to the Van Ness, Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Dupont Circle, Farragut North and McPherson Square. It operates every 20 to 30 minutes on weekends. On Friday and Saturday nights, the last buses start their runs shortly after midnight.
The 32, 34, 35 and 36 Metrobuses: The 30s routes provide service from Friendship Heights and Tenleytown into downtown via Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Avenues. The bus routes run every 10 to 15 minutes on weekends.
Two more weekends to go after this before the switch fix is complete.
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February 29, 2008; 4:49 PM ET
Metro
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Posted by: Zizzy | February 29, 2008 7:07 PM
"Wouldn't it be more efficient to shuttle a train (or two) in the single track area, band have all other trains reverse direction when they reach the station on either side."
In theory, yes. Personally, I'd like to see these shuttles double up. One of them run express from one end of the work to the other, and then make all the stops after that on to the rush hour turnarounds (Grovesnor/Silver Spring. The other one should then be a regular local service train. Like they did with the Metro Center work, have both trains run through, before the others do.
...although, I'm thinking that the way the system is built would prevent this from happening...
Posted by: Choco | February 29, 2008 10:22 PM
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Wouldn't it be more efficient to shuttle a train (or two) in the single track area, band have all other trains reverse direction when they reach the station on either side.
It seems rather ridiculous to bring the entire Red Line to crawl because of work being done along a single section.