Report a Comment

I prefer for the "new line" to be referred to as a "spur" of the orange line, since that's essentially what it actually is. It doesn't make sense to me to pretend that it's a separate line if 90% of the stops are actually identical.

The demographics section should have a question identifying the disability status (if any) of the person filling the survey. After all, it's not only my race and gender and age that influence and shape who I am and how I view the world ... the fact that I happen to be a person with a disability (actually, several disabilities) is also another important part of who I am. It's not all of me, and it's not the only important part of me, but it's there and it's important, so why shouldn't I have a chance to identify myself that way? And, it might be interesting to see if that factor influences people's responses to the various questions. It might not, but then again factors such as gender or race might not make a difference either ... but you can't know without checking.

I voted to identify the color/name of each line by actually printing the word (eg, "red") rather than the proposed two-letter code because I felt the two-letter code might not be immediately intuitive or obvious especially for new users. I probably wouldn't have realized that "RD" was meant to refer to the name of the line ("red") if I hadn't seen it in the context of the question.

I wish they were planning another line running through downtown to serve some of the same neighborhoods being served by the red line now (but a few blocks away) plus serving neighborhoods like Georgetown that don't have a metro stop but should. We NEED something like this to take some of the stress off the red line. I also wish they were planning a line that would connect some of the suburban stops more directly to each other, for example something running from Glenmont to Shady Grove (or stations near those two) so that people who live near one end of the red line don't have to travel all the way into the city and then back out again just to travel a short distance away. Plus some of the other suburban stops near the ends of the various metro lines. But unfortunately they don't seem to be doing either of these yet.

I understand why others want a comment box in the survey itself: I do too. But I also understand why they don't: if you have a comment box then you have to invest more staff hours reading all the comments and then writing up a summary of common themes that emerge among the comments etc. then there's more staff time spent deciding what, if anything, to actually do about the issues raised. And the thing is that the staff hours to do all this do cost money in salaries! They probably omitted the comment box simply because it would have cost too much to include.

by Andrea S. on Sep 6, 2011 9:05 pm • link • report