Hello everyone...my name is Dirk Scribbler...and I'm a D.C. Metro geek. (Cue the other weirdos in the room screaming, "HI, DIRK!!!") Ever since seeing this commercial on TV that featured a toy bus and train that was never for sale--believe me, I researched it and asked my mom and dad about it to no avail--I have been fascinated by every and all things Metro since 1985. I know what the Flxible New Looks, the GMC "Fishbowls", the MAN SG310s or the God-forsaken Neoplan AN440s are. (If you rode a bus out of Southeast between the mid-1980s and the early-1990s that was supposed to be an upgrade from the older New Look models but got stuck on one that broke down, then you already know what a Neoplan AN440 is, too, and can understand my bittersweet disdain.) You didn't need to go all the way to Metro Center or call 637-7000 because I was the original Metro NextBus for the hood, literally possessing every bus schedule in circulation. Entire Saturdays and Sundays were blocked out to either build scale-model Metrobuses out of cardboard paper or ride bus routes and subway lines from one end to the other. Oh yeah, and it also doesn't help that at least four relatives on my dad's side of the family currently work for Metro; heck, I wanted to be a bus driver when I was eight years old and my first job at 22 was nearly with Metro if it weren't for a six-month waiting period to enter their training program. I guarantee that you probably won't find anybody in your six degrees of separation who is as obsessed with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) as I was and, to a certain degree, still am. However, amidst rising fares, safety hazards, an aging rolling stock of rail cars and a revolving door of general managers--they went ten months without one last year--the Metro that I grew up loving so much is just not the award-winning transit system that it used to be. As a youth, all I had to do was make sure that I had enough tokens or enough on my student farecard to get to and from school and just enjoy the ride. Now I have the thought of possibly not making it home in one piece sitting deep in my subconscious. So being inspired by frequent conversations that I have with Facebook friends as well as an actual page of the same name started by one of my high school friends, entertain me as I go through my own personal "WMATA Chronicles".
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, BUT NEVER LATE IS BETTER. When my mother, my brother and I lived with my aunt, my uncle and my older cousin on Savannah Place, S.E., I begged my mother one day to take me and my brother on a bus ride. We didn't have to really go anywhere or do anything but just ride. After endless pleading, we finally hopped on one of those aforementioned Flxible New Looks signed "32 FRIENDSHIP HEIGHTS", which was about a 90-minute ride from what was one of the roughest sections of Southeast at the time, Shipley Terrace, to the more high-end Chevy Chase section of Northwest D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland. Yeah, my mother won some serious points for obliging such a simple request from her nerd of a son. Fast forward over twenty years later and that same bus route would often become the bane of my existence. During my seven-and-a-half year stay in Parklands, the 32 was one of my many options to get to work. Instead of walking 15 minutes to either Congress Heights or Southern Avenue and hopping on the Green Line, I often took a 40-45 minute ride that gave me ample opportunity to work on lyrics, write in my journal, read my Bible or whatever book was in tow or type up this very blog back in the Angry Musings days. However, not only was the bus religiously five to ten minutes late, but there were several days that I waited at least fifteen minutes before realizing that the bus wasn't coming at all. Consequently, I would have to take that walk down 22nd Street (aka Dope Boy Fresh Lane) and hoof it to Southern Avenue Station anyway. Point of order: I am often prompt for family events, church and anything that involves my music, but I am notoriously terrible at getting to work on time. With that said, I planned my trips accordingly, but it didn't matter because Metro often laughs harder at your plans than God does. Between endless track work, trains breaking down, overcrowdedness, drivers who often operate on CPT instead of Real Time Arrival time and the occasional jumper who decides to end it all during rush hour, you often have to give yourself an extra 30 minutes to an hour to account for the unexpected delays. Even during a stage of life when you're expected not to have the greatest amount of patience, that wait was so much more bearable not having anywhere in particular to go.
I TYPICALLY LIKE SARDINES WHEN JUNKYARD BAND SINGS ABOUT THEM. While I could continue to vent about the ratchetness that can be the 32, my current situation might be more suitable for this section. Residing now in the Fairland section of Silver Spring, the closest bus routes are the Z6 and Z8. Whether it's noon or midnight, these buses are consistently packed to capacity, especially leaving from Silver Spring Station on the weekdays. I also live close to the R2--which travels between Fort Totten Station and Calverton--and have noticed that the route often benefits from the articulated buses--or "double buses" as we called them as kids. The problem is that Metro will run articulated buses on lines like this, the S2, S4 and 70 (which I occasionally ride to do the same dedicated work for this blog that I did on the 32) even when ridership is lower after a certain time of night. Meanwhile, travelers to the Greencastle, Briggs Chaney or Burtonsville Park & Rides have to settle for being elbow-to-elbow on a 40-foot bus--which is especially annoying during the winter when there's the distinct possibility that you might have to wait for the 11:47 P.M. bus. Add Metrorail to the mix and that's an entirely different animal, particularly on the Red Line where white-collar professionals often act more like stereotypical East of the River residents to make that train with no regard for the fact that there's another one coming in two minutes. (No bull...I have watched grown men push women through the closing doors just to get on a train and nearly get socked in the mouth for their rudeness.) Whether it's a train to Shady Grove and there's only a six-car train pulling in to Union Station or a train to Glenmont arriving at the madhouse that is Gallery Place during rush hour, there never seems to be enough cars running frequently enough to handle the massive amount of riders. Heck, there are plenty of times when I get off of work between 9:30 and 10 p.m. and you still can't get a seat--primarily due to track work that feels like it won't get done until Jesus comes back. Plus, at the height of the A.M. and P.M. rush, you darn near get knocked off of platforms just to wait for a train where your face is pretty much pressed against the glass if you're so fortunate to get aboard. Perfect segue for the next section...
ISN'T THE TERM SUPPOSED TO BE "RIDE OR DIE"?!?! I was barely two years old when the first major deadly incident happened in January of 1982, a derailment that occurred due to a malfunctioning crossover switch and resulted in three fatalities and 25 other injuries. Therefore, there's not much personal attachment to that particular tragedy, but I have witnessed a few other indelible incidents. The first time that I ever saw an accident involving a Metrobus was when I was seven years old and it appeared that a car had run into the side of one of those old MAN SG-310 articulated buses (think the 70 or the X buses) and I believe the person in the car may have lost their life. The most vivid memory of all was when I was on my way to Jefferson Junior High School in the early 1990s and one of those aforementioned Neoplan AN440 buses had an engine failure--which was typical along with other frame issues for the buses that Neoplan USA sent WMATA as well as Port Authority Transit (PAT) in Pittsburgh--and the entire rear of the bus was engulfed in flames. Thankfully, no one was injured, but I could only imagine how scared I would've been if I were on that bus. Since then, there have been several incidents of bus drivers either striking cars, pedestrians or (in one unfortunate case that happened in White Oak in December 2013) falling victim to unforeseen mechanical issues.
Let's not even talk about violence on the Metro as I once witnessed a group of rude and unruly young men who boarded the 32 (of course it had to be the "hood" bus) violently threaten a bus driver. After a lengthy argument, the driver eventually forced them to alight at a U.S. Capitol Police checkpoint as they were still spewing vitriol once they were booted. Metrorail might be even more ominous as none of the lines are safe from the same type of violence--who can forget this debacle from June 2015--mechanical failures and possible loss of life. Among several derailments and collisions in WMATA's history, none is more infamous and tragic in recent memory than the June 2009 collision between two Red Line trains bound for Shady Grove Station that cost nine people their lives and injured over 70 more. Even after that major accident that made national headlines and raised the eyebrows of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Metrorail has had at least five documented derailments and/or collisions since then (although only a total of three injuries between those incidents were reported) as well as four track worker accidents that killed five and injured two more. Then there's the smoke incidents of 2015 over a period of 41 days at the Woodley Park, Foggy Bottom, Rosslyn and L'Enfant Plaza Stations--the latter station was the site of the first incident on January 13th that sent 84 people to the hospital and claimed the life of one woman as well as the last incident on February 22nd. I don't think anyone wakes up and expects these things to occur when they plan their days, but a transit system that costs so much money to use shouldn't strike fear or lack of confidence into the hearts of its customers--a trepidation that is part of the significant drop in ridership since 2010. That brings me to my final section of my rant...
Let's not even talk about violence on the Metro as I once witnessed a group of rude and unruly young men who boarded the 32 (of course it had to be the "hood" bus) violently threaten a bus driver. After a lengthy argument, the driver eventually forced them to alight at a U.S. Capitol Police checkpoint as they were still spewing vitriol once they were booted. Metrorail might be even more ominous as none of the lines are safe from the same type of violence--who can forget this debacle from June 2015--mechanical failures and possible loss of life. Among several derailments and collisions in WMATA's history, none is more infamous and tragic in recent memory than the June 2009 collision between two Red Line trains bound for Shady Grove Station that cost nine people their lives and injured over 70 more. Even after that major accident that made national headlines and raised the eyebrows of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Metrorail has had at least five documented derailments and/or collisions since then (although only a total of three injuries between those incidents were reported) as well as four track worker accidents that killed five and injured two more. Then there's the smoke incidents of 2015 over a period of 41 days at the Woodley Park, Foggy Bottom, Rosslyn and L'Enfant Plaza Stations--the latter station was the site of the first incident on January 13th that sent 84 people to the hospital and claimed the life of one woman as well as the last incident on February 22nd. I don't think anyone wakes up and expects these things to occur when they plan their days, but a transit system that costs so much money to use shouldn't strike fear or lack of confidence into the hearts of its customers--a trepidation that is part of the significant drop in ridership since 2010. That brings me to my final section of my rant...
INTRODUCING THE WMATA ARM-AND-A-LEG PAYMENT PLAN. So here's my "I Used to Walk to School Barefoot" Moment: I remember when Metrobus fares used to be between $0.65 and $0.80 and Metrorail wasn't much higher than that. Then again, this was in the early to mid 1980s when most riders were much more confident in the system. Fast forward to 2016 and the base fare is $1.75 on both transportation methods while you can pay as high as $4 on an express bus and $5.90 for a peak-hour subway ride. Oh, and let's not forget paying between $4.60 and $5.10 if you're parking at a Metro station like me. We're talking percentage increases of between 28 and 59 percent since June 2004 with no changes for three and a half years until 2008 and five fare changes since then--including twice in 2010 when the supposed dip in ridership occurred. Now I'm not one of these people who don't understand the concepts of supply and demand and of things just costing more over time. However, let's just say that I'm that person who actually has to pay nearly $6 to get home on Metrorail and then either hop on an express bus or pay nearly $5 to exit a parking lot. If I'm shelling out that much money, then I don't wanna feel like I'm hospital-bound because of smoke inhalation or like I have to wait so long because trains running every three to five minutes are packed to capacity with people nearly coming to fisticuffs to get aboard.
This is my whole thing: where is our hard-earned money actually going? Metro continues to contend that their revenue is sinking while their expenses--which will include software upgrades, elevator and escalator repairs, rail car replacements, track repairs and their electronic payment system. Let me share the best illustration that I can provide. When I'm riding in to work every day, it is often on a train car that was issued to Metro a year before I was a twinkle in my mother's eye. We always hit a noticeably hard bump in the tracks between Fort Totten and Brookland, but on one particular afternoon, it shook up a middle-aged woman and another middle-aged man considerably. Startled, the woman said, "I've never noticed that before." I replied, "That happens every day." Both the man and the woman looked bewildered at my somewhat nonchalant response as we all had a simultaneous "that can't be right" moment. That's when I start looking at WMATA with an Arnold Jackson-esque side eye when they wanna jack up the fares. I understand you're spending money on track repairs, but spend some of that revenue to do track work there. Considering that very spot is not far from where the 2009 collision happened, that doesn't make me ride with confidence. While you're at it, that rail car replacement plan needs to include areas outside of Tyson's Corner and Reston because, otherwise, I feel like my dollars aren't going toward making my trip more secure. Also, please don't skimp on spending some of that dough on bus operator training or hiring better drivers because when pedestrians have to be more like Barry Sanders in the crosswalks--and I've nearly been hit my doggone self--then either the pedestrians or the drivers are clearly in the wrong professions.
Take those red ree-ree's off and I'll ride wit ya booski! Good post. I don't like any transit that isn't a train since it flares up my motion sickness, but I can appreciate your love for the system. It's one of the things I love about you. This was good to read.
ReplyDeleteNah, gotta keep the Reeboks lol! Thanks for reading beeb!
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