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Washington Metro
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The Washington Metro (officially Metrorail but commonly referred to as just Metro) is the rapid transit system in Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs. The system is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery County and Prince George's County. In Virginia, service extends to Fairfax County, Arlington County, and the City of Alexandria. Since opening in 1976, the Metrorail network has grown to include five lines, 86 stations, and of track.
Metrorail is the second-busiest rapid transit system in the United States, in number of passenger trips, after the New York City Subway.
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Encyclopedia
The Washington Metro (officially Metrorail but commonly referred to as just Metro) is the rapid transit system in Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs. The system is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery County and Prince George's County. In Virginia, service extends to Fairfax County, Arlington County, and the City of Alexandria. Since opening in 1976, the Metrorail network has grown to include five lines, 86 stations, and of track.
Metrorail is the second-busiest rapid transit system in the United States, in number of passenger trips, after the New York City Subway. There were 215.3 million trips, or 727,684 trips per weekday, on Metrorail in fiscal year 2008. In June 2008, Metrorail set a new monthly ridership record with 19,729,641 trips, or 798,456 per weekday. Fares vary based on the distance traveled and the time of day. Riders enter and exit the system using a stored-value card in the form of a paper magnetic stripe farecard or a proximity card known as SmarTrip.
Metrorail was designed by Chicago architect Harry Weese, and is an example of late-20th century modern architecture. With its heavy use of concrete and the repetitive nature of its design motifs, Metro stations also display aspects of brutalist design. In 2007, the design of the Metro's vaulted-ceiling stations was voted #106 on the American Institute of Architects' list of America's Favorite Architecture.
History
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During the 1960s, there were plans for a massive freeway system in Washington. However, opposition to this freeway system grew. Harland Bartholomew, who chaired the National Capital Planning Commission, thought that a rail transit system would never be self-sufficient because of low density land uses and general transit ridership decline. Finally, a mixed concept of a Capital Beltway system along with rail line radials was agreed upon. The Beltway received full funding; monies for the ambitious Inner Loop Freeway system were partially reallocated toward construction of the Metro system.
In 1960, the federal government created the National Capital Transportation Agency to develop a rapid rail system. In 1966, a bill creating WMATA was passed by the federal government, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland,
with planning power for the system being transferred to it from the NCTA.
WMATA approved plans for a regional system in 1968, and construction on the metro began in 1969, with groundbreaking on December 9. The system opened March 27, 1976, with available on the Red Line with five stations from Rhode Island Avenue to Farragut North, all in the District of Columbia. Arlington County, Virginia was linked to the system on July 1, 1976; Montgomery County, Maryland on February 6, 1978; Prince George's County, Maryland on November 20, 1978; and Fairfax County, Virginia and Alexandria, Virginia on December 17, 1983.
The final , 83 station system was completed with the opening of the Green Line segment to Branch Avenue on January 13, 2001. This did not mean the end of the growth of the system, however: a extension of the Blue Line to Largo Town Center and Morgan Boulevard stations opened on December 18, 2004. The first in-fill station (New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U on the Red Line between Union Station and Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood) opened November 20, 2004, and planning is underway for an extension to Dulles Airport.
Metro system construction required billions of federal dollars, originally provided by Congress under the authority of the National Capital Transportation Act of 1969 (Public Law 91-143). This act was subsequently amended on January 3, 1980 by Public Law 96-184, "The National Capital Transportation Amendment of 1979" (also known as the Stark-Harris Act), which authorized additional funding in the amount of $1.7 billion to permit the completion of of the Metrorail system as provided under the terms of a full funding grant agreement executed with WMATA in July 1986. On November 15, 1990, Public Law 101-551, "The National Capital Transportation Amendments of 1990", authorized spending of an additional $1.3 billion in federal funds to finance construction of the remaining of the system, completed via the execution of full funding grant agreements.
The highest ridership for a single day was the Inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, with 1,120,000 riders. It broke the previous record, set the day before, of 866,681 trips. June 2008 set several ridership records: it set the single-month ridership record of 19,729,641 total riders, the record for highest average weekday ridership with 772,826 weekday trips, had five of the ten highest ridership days, and had 12 weekdays in which ridership exceed 800,000 trips.
In February 2006, Metro officials chose Randi Miller, a car dealership employee from Woodbridge, Virginia, to record new "doors opening", "doors closing", and "please stand clear of the doors, thank you" announcements after winning an open contest to replace the messages recorded by Sandy Carroll in 1996.
Metrorail network
Since opening in 1976, the Metrorail network has grown to include five lines, 86 stations, and of track. The rail network is designed according to a spoke-hub distribution paradigm, with rail lines running between downtown Washington and its nearby suburbs. The system makes extensive use of interlining (i.e., running more than one service on the same track). There are five operating lines and one planned line:
There are currently 40 stations in the District of Columbia, 14 in Prince George's County, 12 in Montgomery County, 11 in Arlington County, 6 in Fairfax County, and 3 in the City of Alexandria. When completed, the Silver Line will add 11 new stations to the system, 8 in Fairfax County and 3 in Loudoun County, Virginia.
About of Metro's track is underground, as are 47 of the system's 86 stations. Track runs underground mostly within the District and high-density suburbs. Surface track accounts for about of the system's total, and aerial track makes up . At below the surface, the Forest Glen station on the Red Line is the deepest in the system. There are no escalators; high-speed elevators take 20 seconds to travel from the street to the station platform. Wheaton station, next to Forest Glen station on the Red Line, has the second-longest continuous escalator in the world, the longest in the Western Hemisphere, at . The Rosslyn station is the deepest station on the Orange/Blue Line, at below street level. The station features the third-longest continuous escalator in the world at ; an escalator ride between the street level and the mezzanine level takes nearly two minutes.
The system is not centered on any single station, but Metro Center is located at the intersection of the Red, Orange, and Blue Lines, the three busiest lines in the system. The station is also the location of WMATA's main sales office. Metro has designated five other "core stations" that each have high passenger volume, including: Gallery Place–Chinatown, transfer station for the Red, Green, and Yellow Lines; L'Enfant Plaza, transfer station for the Orange, Blue, Green, and Yellow Lines; Union Station, the busiest station by passenger boardings; Farragut North; and Farragut West. In order to deal with the high number of passengers in transfer stations, Metro is studying the possibility of building pedestrian connections between nearby core transfer stations. For example, a passage between Metro Center and Gallery Place stations would allow passengers to transfer between the Orange/Blue and Yellow/Green Lines without going one stop on the Red Line. Another tunnel between Farragut West and Farragut North stations would allow transfers between the Red and Orange/Blue lines, decreasing transfer demand at Metro Center by an estimated 11%.
Metro runs special service patterns on holidays and when events in Washington may require additional rail service. Independence Day activities require Metro to adjust service in order to provide extra capacity to and from the National Mall. WMATA makes similar adjustments during other events, such as presidential inaugurations. Metro has altered service and used some stations as entrances or exits only to help manage congestion.
Rolling stock
Metro's rail fleet consists of 1,140 rail cars. Trains have a maximum speed of , but average including stops. All rail cars in the Metrorail system currently operate in married pairs (consecutively numbered even-odd), with systems shared across the pair.
Metro's current rolling stock was acquired in six phases. Each version of rail car is identified with a separate series number. The original order of 296 rail cars was manufactured by Rohr Manufacturing, with final delivery in 1978. These cars are numbered 1000–1299 and were rehabilitated in the mid-1990s. The Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie (Breda) company manufactured the second order of 76 cars delivered in 1983 and 1984. These cars, numbered 2000–2075, were rehabilitated in the early 2000s by Alstom in Hornell, New York. A third order of 288 cars, also from Breda, were delivered between 1984 and 1988. These cars are numbered 3000–3291 and were rehabilitated by Alstom in the early 2000s. An order of 100 cars from Breda, numbered 4000–4099, were delivered between 1992 and 1994. A fifth order of 192 rail cars was manufactured by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles of Spain. These cars are numbered 5000–5191 and were delivered from 2001 through 2004. A sixth order of 184 rail cars from Alstom were delivered between 2005 and 2007. The cars have body shells built in Barcelona, Spain with assembly completed in Hornell, New York.
The 7000 series of cars, currently in development, are planned to go into service starting in 2012. The new cars will be different from previous models in that they will operate as married quads, instead of pairs. The new design will allow for increased passenger capacity, elimination of redundant equipment, greater energy efficiency, and lower maintenance costs. Metro plans to eventually purchase as many as 748 new rail cars in order to increase system capacity and replace its older rolling stock.
Signaling and operation
During normal operation on revenue tracks (used for passenger services), trains are controlled by an automatic train operation system that accelerates and brakes the trains automatically without operator intervention. However, all trains are manned with train operators who close the doors (they can optionally be set to open automatically), make station announcements, and supervise their trains. The operator can manually override a train when necessary.
Safety and security
Metro planners designed the system with passenger safety and order maintenance as primary considerations. The open vaulted ceiling design of Metro stations and the limited obstructions on platforms allow few opportunities to conceal criminal activity. Station platforms are also built away from station walls, to limit vandalism and provide for diffused lighting of the station from recessed lights. Metro's attempts to reduce crime, combined with how the station environments were designed with crime prevention in mind, has contributed to the fact that Metrorail is among the safest and cleanest subway systems in the United States.
Metro is patrolled by its own police force, which is charged with ensuring the safety of Metro passengers and employees. Transit Police officers patrol the Metrorail system and Metrobuses, and they have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the Metro service area for crimes that occur on or against transit authority facilities, or within of a Metrobus stop. The Metro Transit Police Department is the only American police agency that has local police authority in three different "state"-level jurisdictions (Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia).
Each city and county in the Metro service area has similar ordinances that regulate or prohibit vending on Metro-owned property, and which prohibit riders from eating, drinking, or smoking in Metro trains, buses, and stations; the Transit Police have a reputation for enforcing these laws rigorously. One widely publicized incident occurred in 2000 when police arrested a 12-year-old girl for eating french fries in the Tenleytown–AU station. In a 2004 opinion by John Roberts – now the Chief Justice of the United States – the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the girl's arrest. By then, however, WMATA had answered negative publicity by adopting a policy of first issuing warnings to juveniles, and arresting them only after three violations within a year.
Metro's zero-tolerance policy on food, trash and other sources of disorder embodies the "broken windows" philosophy of crime reduction. This philosophy also extends to the use of station restroom facilities. A longstanding policy, intended to curb unlawful and unwanted activity, has been to only allow employees to use Metro restrooms. Station managers could make exceptions for passengers with small children, the elderly, or the disabled. Today, Metro allows the use of restrooms by passengers who gain a station manager's permission, except during periods of heightened terror alerts.
Accidents
On January 13, 1982, a train derailed at a malfunctioning crossover switch south of Federal Triangle station. In attempting to restore the train to the rails, supervisors failed to notice that another car had also derailed. The other rail car slid off the track and hit a tunnel support, killing three people and injuring 25. Coincidentally, this accident occurred at the same time as Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge during a major snowstorm.
On January 6, 1996, during the Blizzard of 1996, a Metro operator was killed when a train failed to come to a stop at Shady Grove station. The four-car train overran the station platform and struck an unoccupied train that was awaiting assignment. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that the crash was a result of a failure in the train's computer-controlled braking system. The NTSB recommended that Metro grant train operators the ability to manually control the braking system, even in inclement weather. Additionally, investigators recommended that Metro prohibit parked rail cars on tracks used by inbound trains.
On November 3, 2004, an out-of-service Red Line train rolled backwards into the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station and hit an in-service train stopped at the platform. No one was killed, but 20 people were injured. A 14-month investigation concluded that the train operator was most likely not alert as the train rolled backwards into the station. Safety officials estimated that had the train been full, at least 79 would have died. The train operator was dismissed and Metro officials agreed to add rollback protection to more than 300 rail cars.
Following the November 2004 accident, Metro had a string of three fatal accidents involving Metro employees in a little over a year. In October 2005, a Metro employee was struck and killed at Braddock Road station on the Blue and Yellow Lines. In May 2006, another Metro employee died after being hit by a Red Line train at Dupont Circle station. On November 30, 2006, two Metro employees were struck and killed by a Metrorail train while performing routine track maintenance on the Yellow Line near Eisenhower Avenue station. The operator of the train was found to be at fault for not following appropriate emergency braking procedures, and was dismissed. WMATA subsequently limited when track inspections can take place and lowered train speeds to when within of inspectors.
On January 7, 2007, a Green Line train carrying about 150 people derailed near Mount Vernon Square station in downtown Washington. The accident injured 16 people and prompted the rescue of 60 people from an underground tunnel. At least one person had a serious but non-life-threatening injury. The accident was one of a series of five derailments involving Metrorail's 5000-Series cars.
Random bag searches
On October 27, 2008, the Metro Transit Police Department announced plans to immediately begin random searches of backpacks, purses, and other bags. Transit police will search riders at random before boarding a bus or entering a rail station. Police also have the right to stop anyone acting suspiciously. Metro claims that the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision in MacWade v. Kelly, which upheld random searches on the New York City Subway, allows Metro Transit Police to take similar action. Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn stated that if someone were to turn around and simply enter the system through another escalator or elevator, that Metro has "a plan to address suspicious behavior". Security specialist Bruce Schneier characterized the plan as "security theater against a movie plot threat", implying that he does not believe that these random searches will actually help improve security.
Metro’s Riders’ Advisory Council recommended to WMATA’s board of directors that Metro hold at least one public meeting regarding the search program. , Metro had not conducted a single bag search.
Fare structure
Metrorail fare varies based on the distance traveled and the time of day at entry. During regular hours (weekdays from opening until 9:30 am and 3–7 pm, and Friday and Saturday nights from 2:00 am to closing), fares are charged at a rate ranging from $1.65 to $4.50, depending on distance traveled. At all other times, fares are charged at reduced rate of $1.35, $1.85, or $2.35, based on distance traveled. Discounted fares are also available for school children, the disabled, and the elderly. Metrorail also charges reduced fares on federal holidays except those during which Metrorail provides rush hour service, including: Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and Presidents Day.
Riders enter and exit the system using a stored-value card in the form of a paper magnetic stripe farecard or a proximity card known as SmarTrip. The fare is deducted from the balance of the card upon exiting the system. Farecards are purchased primarily at vending machines located in each station. Farecards can hold up to $45 in value and are reused until the value of the card is zero. Alternatively, passengers may purchase several varieties of Metrorail passes available at most farecard vending machines. The passes are used the same way as farecards but grant riders unlimited travel within the system for a certain period of time. Some Metrorail passes restrict the times and distances that the pass may be used.
Users can add value to any farecard, but riders must purchase exit fare if the cost of a trip is higher than their card's balance. SmarTrip users are allowed to exit the system with a negative balance but must add fare to the card before their next journey. Riders may transfer to trains within the Metrorail system for free, so long as passengers do not exit through the faregates. Additionally, SmarTrip users receive a $0.50 discount on bus-to-rail and rail-to-bus transfers.
Future expansion
WMATA expects an average one million Metrorail riders daily by 2030. The need to increase capacity has renewed plans to add 220 subway cars to the system and reroute trains to alleviate congestion at the busiest stations. Population growth in the region has also revived efforts to extend service, build new stations, and construct additional Metrorail lines.
Silver Line
The most prominent expansion of Metrorail service is the Silver Line. The Silver Line will be a extension of the Orange Line into Loudoun County, Virginia by way of Tysons Corner and Washington Dulles International Airport. Rail to Dulles has been discussed since the Metrorail system opened in 1976. The current Silver Line project was formally proposed in 2002 and initially approved by the Federal Transit Administration in 2004. After several delays, federal funding for the Silver Line was secured in December 2008. The line will be constructed in two phases. The first segment of the line to Wiehle Avenue in Reston, Virginia is scheduled to open in 2013. The final portion of the line to Virginia Route 772, beyond Dulles Airport, is scheduled to open in 2015.
Blue Line realignment
Blue Line trains share a single-track tunnel with Orange Line trains in order to cross the Potomac River. The current tunnel limits service in each direction, creating a choke point in the system. A 2001 proposal would have rerouted the Blue Line between the Rosslyn and Stadium-Armory stations by building a bridge or tunnel from Virginia to a new station in Georgetown. The proposal was later rejected due to cost. In October 2008, Metro released a study on the possibility of rerouting some Blue Line trains over the 14th Street Bridge, currently only used by Yellow Line trains. This Blue Line realignment would increase service directly to downtown and relieve congestion at the Rosslyn tunnel. If implemented, the new service between Franconia–Springfield and Greenbelt stations is expected to be called the Brown Line.
Fort Belvoir and Fort Meade extensions
In 2005, The Pentagon announced that it would be shifting 18,000 jobs to Fort Belvoir in Virginia and at least 5,000 jobs to Fort Meade in Maryland by 2012, as part of the military's Base Realignment and Closure plan. In anticipation of such a move, local officials and the military proposed extending Metrorail service on the Blue and Green Lines in order to service each base. The proposed extension of the Green Line could cost $100 million per mile, and a light rail extension to Fort Belvoir was estimated to cost up to $800 million. Neither proposal has established timelines for planning or construction.
Potomac Yard station
In 2008, local officials explored the possibility of adding a Metrorail station in the Potomac Yard area of Alexandria. The station would be built along the existing Blue and Yellow Lines between the National Airport and Braddock Road stations. The project remains in the exploratory stages, and construction funding (estimated at $150 million) has not been approved.
Non-Metrorail projects
A number of light rail and urban streetcar projects have been proposed to extend or supplement service provided by Metro.
Like the Silver Line in Virginia, the proposed Purple Line has been in planning since the 1980s. The project was originally envisioned as a circular heavy rail line connecting the outer stations on each branch of Metrorail system, in a pattern roughly mirroring the Capital Beltway. The current proposal, however, would create a light rail system in Maryland between the Bethesda and New Carrollton stations by way of Silver Spring and College Park. Such a plan would connect both branches of the Red Line to the Green and Orange Lines, and would decrease the travel time between suburban Metro stations. The project is still undergoing regulatory approval but received significant backing from local officials and Maryland lawmakers in January 2009.
The Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) would link Clarksburg, Maryland in northern Montgomery County with the Shady Grove station on the Red Line. The CCT is currently scheduled to open in 2016. In 2005, a Maryland lawmaker proposed a light rail system to connect areas of Southern Maryland, especially the rapidly-growing area around the town of Waldorf, to the Branch Avenue station on the Green Line. The project is still in the planning stages.
In Washington, a new DC Streetcar system is under construction to link various neighborhoods to Washington Metro stations. The first tram line will connect Bolling Air Force Base to Anacostia station and is expected to open in late 2009. Additional streetcar routes have been proposed in the Atlas District, Capitol Hill, and the K Street corridor. In Virginia, the Pike Transit Initiative is a streetcar project that will link Annandale, Virginia along Columbia Pike to the Pentagon City station in Arlington. The streetcars are expected to begin service in 2011.
See also
External links
- Official site
- Official site
- Neighborhood maps and panoramic photographs of each station
- Metro Passenger Advocacy Group
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Transit enthusiast sites
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and its featuring a link to a track map that was removed post-9/11 at the request of WMATA -
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Maps
Equipment
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