Comments on Metro's 5-second policy adds delay without solving problems - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Matthias

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 11:52:44 EDT

Wow, this is unbelievably stupid. This delay will cause more crowding, which will increase dwell time, which will cause more crowding...

Just rode the London Underground for the first time. It is amazing. Doors begin to open just before the train comes to a complete stop, and escalators move at a respectable clip.

The sooner competent computers resume operating these trains, the better.

Comment by AlanF

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 23:26:23 EDT

Having experienced the new 5 second rule over the weekend, I have to agree that it is just long enough to be annoying. A 3 or 4 second delay to open the doors would not be that noticeable. But 5 seconds is long enough to start counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, ... oh come on, open the door!

Is the reason for 5 seconds is that it is a handy round number? Is management worried that if they said four seconds, that train operators might sometime open the door in 2 or 3 seconds after coming to a stop?

Comment by Red line rider

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 18:53:20 EDT

This is SO ANNOYING!! I hate it when trains arrive at the station, sit there, and don't open their damn doors. It is awful for the people stuck inside, at the damn door, waiting for it to just OPEN so they can get to work. STUPID STUPID STUPID IDEA METRO!!!!

Comment by Dan Gamber

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:50:52 EDT

So they are making worse what has been an annoyance for years - some drivers not opening doors until they get out of their seat and look out the window. A much simpler solution to this business is to have all trains always stop at the end of the station, like in many cities. And put up mirrors or cameras so the drivers can see the platform and side of the train without getting up.

Comment by AlanfromBigEasy

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 06:50:07 EDT

Metro, under better management, could once operate 30 trains/hour - one train every 2:00 minutes.

And they once did this with 98% on-time performance !

Now a terrible 90% of Peak trains are on-time, and they cannot run more than 27 trains/hour. This new rule will drop that to 26 or 25 trains/hour.

This is one more step in degrading the value and utility of one of Washington's greatest assets.

Bus managers are in charge of rail operations at WMATA.

This is almost as bad as WMATA policy trying to shift passengers from rail (18 cents subsidy/pax-mile) to bus ($1.12 subsidy/pax-mile).

Comment by CP

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:49:46 EDT

Like the Paris and Berlin systems, Montreal's subway also has doors that open before the train has fully stopped. Everyone moves quickly and I've never heard of any injuries.

Comment regarding WMATA's lack of accountability: spot-on. They don't care and no one (neither riders nor government) is willing or able to make them care. The system's getting worse.

Comment by Jacob

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:12:12 EDT

@Matt:

Thanks for the info, I didn't know that but I do wonder how often/consistently they are enforced. I can't find the link at the moment but I recall reading an article not too long ago showing that an appalling percentage of fired WMATA employees end up being reinstated with backpay because management doesn't follow its own rules regarding properly documenting the cause for termination.

Comment by Matt Johnson

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:03:36 EDT

@Jacob:
The current penalties for this are even more strict than you suggest:
1st offense: Operators are suspended for 12 days without pay. 2nd offense: disqualified from operating a train for 18 months.
3rd offense: operator is fired.

Comment by Jacob

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:56:07 EDT

This, like so many of Metro's problems, stems from the complete lack of accountability at all levels of WMATA. Employees who know that they won't be punished for misconduct (or rewarded for going above and beyond) tend not to care about their performance resulting in lazy, sloppy errors like opening the doors on the wrong side or not knowing the length of the train they are operating. I bet that instituting severe and automatic disciplinary procedures would almost eliminate errors like this very quickly. Given the severity of the safety hazard involved I think something on the order of 1st offense - one week suspension without pay and mandatory safety retraining, 2nd offense - 6 week suspension without pay and additional retraining, 3rd offense - termination of employment would be appropriate.

Comment by cminus

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:04:44 EDT

@Mike, two things:

1. That space is used when an eight-car train services the station (and is invaluable under that circumstance), so telling people not to stand there wouldn't necessarily be correct.

2. Even if it were, the vash majority of the crush doesn't come from people waiting at that end of the platform. The way the station is designed (poorly), Red Line passengers going to Grosvenor or Shady Grove who are either coming from the Green and Yellow Lines or all but one of the station entrances are physically bottlenecked on the Red Line platform, while passengers getting off the Red Line to transfer to Green or Yellow or leave the station via all but the westernmost exit must simultaneously traverse that same bottleneck in the opposite direction. The space is inadequate to handle one of those crowds, never mind both. It's the single busiest space in the entire station, and also the narrowest.

If WMATA were smart, it would figure some way to ensure that Red Line trains to Shady Grove and Grosvenor only pull up far enough so that the end of the train is at the end of the platform, since the last car length of the platform is reachable from the Green Line, Yellow Line, and eastern entrances without passing through the bottleneck. If that's too hard, they could only run eight car trains to Shady Grove during rush hour, since it's the people who are going past Grosvenor and can't wait for the "next" train who are most aggressive about making the transfer.

Comment by NikolasM

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:45:33 EDT

Scoot,

Unless you get stuck in a crush train, it is easily possible to position yourself to get out and over to a transfer quite quickly. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't a stuck behind other trains or slow tourists scenario.

Comment by Scoot

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:32:20 EDT

Last Friday, for example, the extra 20-30 seconds my Red Line trip took made me barely miss my Green Line train at Fort Totten. That meant I had to wait 7 minutes for the next train

Wow. It's really quite silly to attribute people missing their transfers to this new policy, as transfers are frequently missed for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with this policy or really any formal policy WMATA implements, for instance, being stuck behind slow walkers, temporarily losing one's sense of direction in a station, for being stuck in the middle a large group of people emptying out of a train, and so forth.

This policy will cause some people to miss their transfers and some people to actually make their transfers due to the door delays (and other delays) on the line to which they are transferring.

This blog never ceases to amaze for some of the "interesting" statements it publishes.

Comment by Michael Cunningham

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:17:59 EDT

Such a difference from the Paris Metro, where the riders can open the doors themselves even before the train has come to a complete stop.

They don't seem to be killing themselves.

Comment by Craig

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:02:27 EDT

It seems like every other day I read about some new policy like this or some disaster of a commute foisted on the region. I've been in the area long enough to remember what metro used to be like. It was all these little things that drove me back to driving. I feel guilty about it and miss the time I had to read but I don't miss all the problems, the added time or the expense (yes it's more expensive in my case). I want to see metro get its act together and be successful but I've lost hope in that at this point.

Comment by Aaron

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:56:19 EDT

Some of the train operators seem unable to account for the fact it takes them several seconds just to get over to the left side of the cab to open the doors. So if it takes you 5 seconds to move to the left side, don't waste more time counting to 5. The required 5 seconds have already elapsed! Suddenly I'm finding myself waiting at the doors for longer than 10 seconds, which can vary longer due to some train operators counting to 5 more slowly than others.

Comment by Matt Johnson

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:38:41 EDT

@Zach:
I take two trains and a bus on my daily commute. A delay on the Red Line that makes me miss the Green Line increases the chance that I miss the bus.

Saying, well it doesn't matter that your Red Line commute will take longer now because your Green Line commute will also take longer does not solve the problem. The problem is my commute takes longer.

The real point is that it's infuriating to riders. They may know intellectually that they wouldn't have just missed the Green Line if the Green Line hadn't also been waiting 5 seconds, but on the basic level, what they know is, if the damn operator had opened the doors earlier, they wouldn't have to wait 6-12 minutes for the next train.

Comment by Matt Johnson

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:35:11 EDT

@Joe Chapline:
It's an additional 5 seconds. The operator must wait 5 seconds at the window before opening the doors.

So the train stops. The operator gets up and walks across the cab. At the window, hands at their sides, the operator waits 5 seconds, then opens the doors.

Comment by Zach

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:35:00 EDT

I think the comment about barely missing the train do to this policy are probably a bit misleading.

All trains on all lines are following the policy, at least as far as I know. Trains on different lines stop with similar frequencies. Take away the 5 seconds at each stop from both your train and your connecting train, and you still miss your connection by about the same amount.

So really, the net impact on your commute should just be calculated as 5 seconds times the number of stations you transit (and perhaps double at the station where you connect).

Comment by Joe Chapline

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:26:39 EDT

The new policy would add five seconds at each stop if the doors currently opened the instant the train stopped, every time. I don't think that's the case. I'm usually waiting at the door when the train pulls into my stop, and it seems to me that it usually takes several seconds, perhaps five, before the doors open. If an operator has been opening the door after four seconds, and now it's five, it will add a second.

Comment by John Marzabadi

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:16:27 EDT

I thought this was the reason trains now pulled all the way to the front of the platform...? WMATA should reprimand operators who open the doors early, not institute an across-the-board bad policy. Five seconds seems like a short amount of time to those working on spreadsheets over at the Jackson Graham building, but to us riders it adds unnecessary delay to our already busy days.

@John Muller: Completely agree with your point on working-class riders - some can get docked pay for being just a minute late to their jobs. Very inconsiderate of WMATA.

Comment by Kiss It Clean

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:42:07 EDT

I always thought the 5-second rule was used exclusively with food. What germs are we going to get from passing through metro doors? My vote: the 5-second rule should go the way of the dodo!

Comment by Mike

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:16:49 EDT

At Gallery Place, for instance, westbound Red Line trains that are only 6 cars long stop beyond the area where passengers transferring from the Green and Yellow lines come up. This usually leads to a mad dash for the last door of the last car when the train arrives.

And yet Metro still will not post a sign (or an employee) telling people not to stand there.

Comment by Steven Harrell

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:11:05 EDT

Yeah, well for WaPo I guess this will just be another argument in favor of goats, at least until WMAGA comes out with some new regs: wait until the goat has come to a complete stop, wait 5 seconds, then jump out of the cart.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-modest-proposal-dump-metro-get-goats/2012/09/19/cf78c714-026e-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html

I guess I'll just use this new, 5-second time tax to wait until after the train has stopped before I get up from my seat. The North Carolinian in me thinks this will be a healthy moment of pause; the Washingtonian in me will have a heart attack thinking about all the memos that I'll miss writing during the minute I just lost to delay and disorder.

Comment by CityBeautiful21

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:01:19 EDT

This reminds me of Remy's "On The Metro" rap: "we sent a man to the moon, brought him back a week later, much faster than it takes (WMATA) to fix an escalator..."

Transit agencies that take on advanced technologies MUST be able to fix and maintain them. If the automated controls kept doors opening on the wrong side of trains, then staff and vehicle vendor (Alstom?) engineers should have put together a team to diagnose the problem and fix it.

The number of out-of-service escalators at Metro stations over the last several years was an indicator that capital maintenance wasn't a priority. Capital failures eventually lead to expensive labor fixes, some of which, like this one, have bad results for passengers.

Maintenance isn't sexy, but it's absolutely critical. If the WMATA Board can't see why they should throw money and time at getting the automated door fixed, they should at least do a CBA to determine how much more expensive it is to have all the train runs be 5 seconds per station longer.

Comment by kob

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:57:45 EDT

I'm worried that the 5 second wait might have a 'butterfly wings' effect and drive Congress over the fiscal cliff because someone missed a vote.

Comment by Laura

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:43:55 EDT

@Phil and @Joe - the problem with the six-car trains pulling up to the front of the platform, at least at Gallery Place, is not that people don't know where the train will end. It's that almost everyone trying to access the train is coming from the opposite end of the platform. This includes people transferring from Green or Yellow, as well as people accessing the station from two of the three entrances. It results in a complete traffic jam when a train comes in and people are rushing to get on it from one of those places.

I'm a staunch Metro supporter, but the further they move away from automatic operations, the worse the system is. At this point, it seems they are moving completely in the wrong direction.

Comment by M.V. Jantzen

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:42:10 EDT

I'm just curious how the 5-second rule works. Do operators say "one Mississippi, two Mississippi," or is there a clock, or what?

Comment by Gull

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:35:41 EDT

I'm not a frequent METRO rider, but I rode it the other evening, I think the next day after the policy started. My operator in to town from SS did not follow the new rules, as it was clearly more annoying on my return home later in the evening with a train operator who did. Is there someone actually policing the new policy?

Comment by Joe in SS

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:32:48 EDT

Reminds me of an old quote I saw once - "You can make anything foolproof, but you can't make it damnfool-proof."

And +1 on the folks recommending putting a sign where the back of a six car train would be on station platforms, since it should ALWAYS BE IN THE SAME PLACE. Even duct tape on the floor would do the job here - regulars would get the idea, then the tourists would just follow them, but that would require Sarles to care about customer service.

Comment by Phil

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:22:16 EDT

Or just do it like they do in Berlin. All trains pull up to the end of the platform and there is a sign indicating where the shorter trains end so pax can position themselves accordingly.

Also, in Berlin the doors are pushbutton-activated (to save on heating/AC costs) and can be opened 1-2 seconds before the train comes to a complete stop. I'm sure that violates all kinds of FTA and accessibility regulations here, though.

Comment by Thaps

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:20:36 EDT

I still don't understand why the wait 5 seconds policy is better than a don't open the doors till you have your head out the window policy. Wouldn't the latter be easier to "police" than the former?
I can't help but feel that the takeaway here is that Metro is making policies that seem to suggest their issue is an inability to get operators to follow directions.

Comment by Ron

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:12:00 EDT

NY has a black and white striped signs that the conductor must look up at and point to before opening the doors. Seems like a pretty easy, low-tech solution to me. In DC, they could put a marker on the ground of the subway platform that the operator must be lined up to.

Comment by Falls Church

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:11:28 EDT

Agree with everyone saying the biggest problem with the 5 seconds is the added stress when you get on/off. You stand at the door at full attention, ready to make a decisive manuveur to get on/off, the wait... Getting on your mark, then getting set but waiting for the "go" signal is not fun.

Comment by Bossi

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:00:05 EDT

Now in addition to "Fare Gate Crotch Shot" there's "Door Delay Face Smash".

Comment by cmc

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:56:44 EDT

@Colleen,
True, but they'll always crowd the doors. From my experience, it seems that people who are slowed trying to get to the door and come out towards the end of the exodus, directly impact those trying to get on and cause everyone to slow down for a couple seconds.

Comment by NikolasM

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:56:25 EDT

Also, Metro operators need lessons in driving the trains because the smell of riding the brakes till they burn has been incessant all summer.

Comment by NikolasM

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:54:54 EDT

Metro needs to hire better people who know what the heck they are doing rather than enact inane solutions to what should be non existent problems. Based on things I have read the culture there is one that does not promote excellence.

Also, why do the operators tick forward a few feet every 10 seconds or so while waiting for a station to clear? Is it not possible to sit and wait until they get the green light? It is nauseating for seemingly no good reason.

Comment by Colleen

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:53:36 EDT

cmc, that also gives the people on the platform five more seconds to crowd the doors.

Comment by charlie

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:52:04 EDT

The five seconds that finally broke the GGW (pro-WMATA) back.

Comment by cmc

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:47:12 EDT

wouldn't an extra five seconds be cancelled out by the decrease in time it takes for people to get off the train? the five seconds allow people to get from the center of the car to the door before the door opens. This allows them to leave quickly and in a group and those waiting to board can get on faster.

Comment by Elle

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:45:08 EDT

I'm agreed with Corey on this point: 5 seconds is a (mini) eternity once you've pulled into the station and are waiting to get out.

Comment by Colleen

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:44:13 EDT

Jasper: Sure, seven minutes isn't too bad of a wait. But what if it was 12 minutes? 20 minutes? What if you miss your twice-an-hour bus?

Corey: Agreed. It's ridiculously frustrating as a passenger. How can so many other cities figure this out but Metro can not?

Comment by MrTinDC

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:41:07 EDT

This is the latest in a long line of WMATA slowing down the whole system, causing more missed connectins and late arrivals. Does anyone remember back in the 1990s, when there was abunch of escalator accidents? In response, Metro slowed down the speed of the escalators. They never raised the speed of the escalators back to normal, so now the slow (or broken) escalators are the new normal.
Also, a few years ago the faregates became slower to read SmarTrip cards. Remember that? There are bad enough backups at eth faregates in Columbia Heights to exit every day, but adding a second or so to each tap of the card makes the problem worse.
Now, this stupid 5 second rule is making things worse again. They really need to restore automatic control asap, too, to eliminate the additional time of jerking back and forth at each station under manual control. Trains need to open their doors the moment they are fully stopped, everyone needs to hustle out, and allow those boarding to jam on. Move, people! Open, stupid doors! the 5 second delay is psychologically very annoying and stressful to already beleaguered Metro riders.
Thank god I usually bike to work now, haha!

Comment by Corey

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:35:34 EDT

Metro's dumb policy also shows the limits of management-by-spreadsheet. Losing 2 minutes across an end-to-end trip on the Red Line is a drop in the bucket compared to the constant broken-down trains, electrical outages, etc that plague the system.

But that 5 seconds is bizarrely blood-boiling. By the time I've reached my destination I'm so ready to get the hell off the train that waiting five seconds because of some dumb policy makes me want to rage. I seriously can't be alone on this.

The problem isn't the inefficiency, it's the passenger-unfriendly result.

Comment by John Muller

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:33:31 EDT

@Jasper

This impacts working class people chasing every nickel as equally as it does "nerds."

Comment by Jasper

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:28:55 EDT

@ Matt:Last Friday, for example, the extra 20-30 seconds my Red Line trip took made me barely miss my Green Line train at Fort Totten. That meant I had to wait 7 minutes for the next train.

[Deleted for violating the comment policy.] Metro does not run on a tight Japanese schedule where drivers get fired if they're 30 seconds late. Metro runs a relatively loose schedule. You can not complain about 30 seconds, even if you multiply it by a large number.

[Deleted for violating the comment policy.]

Comment by Corey

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:28:00 EDT

Since Metro operates a mix of 6- and 8-car trains and the automatic system no longer ensures trains are fully berthed, a few operators stopped their 8-car trains at the then-in-use 6-car marker and opened their doors with the 8th car still in the tunnel.

I'm sorry, but how dumb do you have to be to do this? It's like getting in a minivan, forgetting that you're not driving a coupe, and only pulling halfway into the garage.

Comment by John Muller

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:24:30 EDT

Working class people need every second they can get. The rising cost of Metro already impacts lower wage earners disproportionally and now they have to wait even longer on the train? Get it together Metro.