Category Archives: DC

CVS to sell Metro Smartrip Cards

As of the 23rd of December you will be able to buy a SmarTrip card from 190 CVS locations in the DC, MD, and Washington area. The cards will be available for $10 which include $5 which can be used for fares for Bus and Metro Trips as well as Metro parking. You can also purchase the cards at Metro Stations and select Giant Stores.

You can add value to the card at either a fare machine at a Metro station or using the fare box on a Metrobus. I am assuming that you can also add money to you card using the fareboxes on the regional buses that accept SmarTrip.

Should we have rapid bus lanes?

Greater Greater Washington has an article up on why we should add rapid transit bus lanes.

WMATA believes that the future of Greater Washington’s transportation rests on priority bus corridors throughout the region, like the MetroExtra (#79) bus from Silver Spring to downtown DC. With Metrorail running out of capacity by 2030 and serious core expansion costing billions, Metro sees rapid buses as the best chance for a real capacity boost.

This has been adopted in many countries include the UK where I grew up, and if the DC area can move away from a car focused transport policy, then rapid bus lanes might actually become a reality.

Silver line passes another hurdle

The Dulles Rail Silver Line extenstion passes another hurdle by getting the sign off from the FTA for the federal contribution of 900 million to the $1.63 billion needed to build the first stage of the Metro rail extension out to Dulles Airport.

Metro has also started procurement of 64 new 7000 series metro rail cars that will look significantly different from the existing fleet. The rail cars would have a stainless steel exterior. The exterior brown paint and stripes would be gone. The Fiberglass seats would be replaced with stainless steel ones and carpet would be eliminated. They are also considering interactive linear maps, and automated announcements stating the station names. While I am all for the automated announcements, I remember the 6000’s doing it when they first started rolling out, so why don’t they do it now?

With the silver line looking like it might actually be built Track Twenty Nine has some very interesting diagrams on the capacity issues the Silver line will create at Rosslyn Station.

Metro is considering routing some blue line trans across the bridge to DC rather than going to Rosslyn as they currently do. When you add the silver line in the rosslyn tunnel it doesn’t look like metro will have any other choice than to reduce the blue line service to the station unless they expand or build another tunnel into DC.

High speed rail link between DC and Baltimore

Seems I am not the only person that thinks that we should have a high speed rail link between DC and Baltimore. I didn’t realize that Baltimore and DC were seriously considering building a Maglev high speed rail link between the two.

The project was chosen in 2001 as one of two finalist for the future development of a magnetic levitation technology rail link. If the 40 miles are completed it would take 18 minutes to travel between the cities.

The Baltimore Business journal is reporting that $15 million may become available from the Federal Government to continue working on the BW Maglev project, however it is not clear that Maryland and DC have money spare to match the funds being released.

DC Metro affected by AIG Collapse

It seems that DC Metro may have been affected by the collapse of AIG. StreetBlog looks at the affect of AIG on transit leasing, they quote the Philly Inquirer

The trouble stems from leasing arrangements made years ago between transit agencies and lenders in which the banks bought transit equipment and facilities, such as railcars and stations, and leased them back to the agencies.

The transit agencies got much-needed cash, and the banks got tax benefits. In 2003, the tax benefits from those kinds of transactions were prohibited by the IRS.

AIG served as the insurer of many of those deals. The collapse of AIG downgraded its credit rating, allowing the lenders to demand full payment from the transit agencies if the agencies did not quickly find other insurers.

The Washington Post says the Washington Metro needs to pay back 43 Million.

In Metro’s case, the regional transit agency could face up to $400 million in payments, the system’s chief financial officer, Carol Kissal, said in an interview yesterday. One bank, KBC Group of Belgium, has told Metro that it needs to pay $43 million by next week. Metro officials confirmed the details but declined to name the bank.

This is a sad time when public transit is at a all time high.

DC adding a fine for blocking bike lanes

This is great news

Tommy Wells reintroduced his amendment to add another fine for blocking bike lanes, currently an illegal act but one with no fine. Before the recess, Wells tried to introduce the amendment, but some other Councilmembers wanted to first hear more research on the appropriate size of the fine.

The bill passed with no opposition on voice vote.

Now all we need is for some tickets to start being issued.

Metro Buses Late 25% of the time

Ever wonder where your bus is? The Washington Post is has a story on a new system that WMATA was put in place that allows them to track how buses are doing.

For the first time in its history, Metro has figured out how late its buses are. They are off schedule more than 25 percent of the time, and some of the worst performing routes are late more than 50 percent of the time.

At least they know where the problems are

Other measures include coordination with regional transportation departments to set aside more dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal technology to help get buses through traffic, he said. There is a dedicated bus lane for the heavily used 70 and 79 routes from Silver Spring to downtown D.C., but other vehicles are often double-parked in the lane, he said.

Enforcing and ticketing cars parked in bus stops and bus lanes is a must to make Public Transportation work. I would also be in favor of reducing the number of bus stop on busy streets. They should should also look at how large the area for bus stops are. I frequently see buses loading and unloading from the main traffic lane instead of pulling into a bus stop.

Metro Testing Straps for th height Challenged

The Post reports that metro has been testing new straps that will help people who can’t reach the top pole..

The transit agency is testing several different styles of overhead handles in rail cars to give riders something to hold onto for extra balance and comfort.

I haven’t tried them out in person, but some of the Fairfax Connector buses have spring-loaded stainless steel handles, which I have found to be next to useless on the buses, you need something solid to brace your self on as a bus swings round corners. So hopefully the straps will work out better.

After using the new 6000 cars I dislike that they have removed a number of polls that go from the floor to the ceiling, they are my favorite brace point for when you have to strand. it also always a natural hand grab for all heights.