I’ve never written a post on my iPhone before, but I’ve got a little time this morning. I’m on the Metrobus #79 due to yesterday’s tragedy on the Red Line and it’s aftermath.

First off, as with everyone else, my prayers go out to those directly affected by the tragedy.

I entered Metro Center yesterday at 6 pm and saw the “delay” notice flashing. Usually, when that happens, I leave Metro Center and walk two blocks east to Gallery Place/Chinatown to ride the Green Line and transfer at Fort Totten. The Fort Totten station is the only transfer (a criss-cross transfer rather than a zipper transfer like at Rosslyn) that gives any redundancy.

A tragedy like yesterday’s illustrates the value of redundant criss-cross transfers in an intracity/regional rail system. This whole situation would have been much easier to manage if the Purple Line already existed. Passengers destined for stations between Takoma and Glenmont could have taken the Green Line to College Park or the Red to Bethesda, transferred to the Purple Line to Silver Spring, then gotten back on the eastern Red Line. WMATA was in a tough spot yesterday establishing shuttle buses between Rhode Island Avenue and Silver Spring. It was rush hour. Most of their bus fleet and driver staff was already in service. Another 6 or 8 car train was delivering passengers to Rhode Island Ave every 2-5 minutes. On top of all that, one (unarticulated) bus holds about half as many people as a single train car.

While the Silver Line is a great idea and should be constructed ASAP to connect Tysons to the rest of the region, the next round of planning should focus on infill rail projects. Our experience with yesterday’s tragedy and its aftermath at least provides this lesson. Yesterday, hard-working WMATA staff were overwhelmed trying to manage a situation that the infrastructure was never designed for. Watching them deepens my disappointment at the slow progress of the Purple Line and other infill rail projects due to super-local anti-politics and a self-defeating federal funding process.

Finally, while yesterday’s incident is tragic, I can’t wait to ride the Red Line again as soon as it reopens. It’s far, far safer than driving (three accidents in 15 years vs. dozens a day) and sure beats this bus I’m on that is stuck in thick Georgia Avenue traffic. Let’s use this tragedy as a springboard to continue making the Washington region greater.

Continue the conversation about urbanism in the Washington region and support GGWash’s news and advocacy when you join the GGWash Neighborhood!

Tagged: metro crash, purple line, transit, wmata

Cavan Wilk became interested in the physical layout and economic systems of modern human settlements while working on his Master’s in Financial Economics. His writing often focuses on the interactions between a place’s form, its economic systems, and the experiences of those who live in them.  He lives in downtown Silver Spring.