Reading the Washington Post and local blogs, it’s easy to think that Metro hardly works, with numerous reports of delays when trains must single-track due to equipment failures or sick passengers. And I’m sure these things do happen, and are very disruptive (this weekend, a train we were riding waited for ten minutes at Dupont Circle for some unknown reason, without any explanation from the conductor).

However, Saturday night we took Metro again to get home from Gallery Place/Chinatown and encountered, to my happy surprise, some operational competence. A large event at the Bad Phone Company Center let out just as our movie ended, creating a huge crush of passengers waiting on the platform. A few minutes later, an empty out of service train pulled up, opened its doors, and became a special Red Line train, carrying everyone on that platform away to their destinations.

Running a special train when a major event generates huge crowds is a logical step, but not something I expected from Metro. Great! Of course, service problems are up 37% from last fall, especially on the Red Line, so Metro has a long road (track?) ahead.

Tagged: dc, transit, wmata

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.