Did Metro handle buses correctly in this mostly-non-storm?
On Monday afternoon, WMATA announced that Metrobuses would only run on a “moderate” snow plan, which cancels or reroutes a large number of buses. But when snow didn’t materialize on much of the region, the agency restored service at dawn Tuesday. Did it make the right calls?
Ned Russell wasn’t so enthusiastic about the original decision. On Monday, he wrote,
This seems a bit much for what is forecast to be rain to an inch dusting in the city. NYC buses don’t change at all for this little snow. I live in Eckington and the three primary routes that serve the neighbourhood—D8, 80 and P6—are all detoured or cancelled with far fewer stops in and around the neighborhood.
Gray Kimbrough felt some whiplash from the decisions:
I understand that there’s a lot of uncertainty here and it’s impossible to please everyone, but keeping transit service running is important to the region. Preemptively announcing significantly limited service only to switch back to regular service early this morning was disruptive to a lot of people.
I guess this could be the new normal strategy, which could be okay if we’re clear on what it means. “WMATA plans to curtail bus service tomorrow but will reevaluate at 4 AM; check back for updates” would have been a much more helpful communication to riders if that was their intended strategy all along.
I checked and the @metrobusinfo Twitter account did tweet the revision just before 4 am, though @wmata didn’t until 6 am and it didn’t really filter through the media until later in the morning.
Other contributors, however, defended Metro, saying this was a very tough situation.
Abigail Zenner felt that she’d rather Metro preemptively cancel service than try to run it and have buses get stuck, as she’s experienced in her neighborhood of Glover Park.
Warmer temperatures mean no ice. It could have easily gone the other way. We are cursed to be on the snow line.
In the past, we would slide to the bus stop only to find out a bus was stuck on a slippery spot never to be heard from again and blocking the road.
Adam Froehlig explained the extremely difficult forecast:
Yesterday afternoon it looked tricky. The “cutoff line” was basically right on top of the region, aligned southwest to northeast. This is a difficult forecast, as Abigail mentioned earlier. In scenarios like this where you’re close to the freezing point not just at the surface but at lower altitudes, all it takes is a difference of one or two degrees at the right altitude to make the difference between rain, snow, or some other form of freezing precipitation.
What looks like happened is temperatures stayed just warm enough at the right altitudes to keep the precip as mostly rain or rain/snow mix from the District south and east. It should be noted (and highlights the cutoff mentioned above) that Dulles and BWI have been all snow since 4am, while National has been oscillating between rain or a rain/snow mix.
So the change overnight is likely what prompted WMATA to change their plans this morning, and also played a factor in OPM’s status decision.
Jonathan Neeley also gave Metro the benefit of the doubt:
The thought I keep coming back to is that the blizzard was a chance to not screw up royally, and Metro seized it. They agency didn’t handle everything perfectly, but given its however-many-years’ worth of poor decision making and customer service, I think it’s OK to say things went well.
Obviously, yesterday’s precautions wound up being unnecessary, but as others have said, that isn’t always clear until pretty late in the game. I don’t know exactly what factors went into making decisions about bus service, both yesterday and pre-blizzard. But I’m willing to consider that being a bit too trigger happy in that realm has been part of a tradeoff that meant a positive move for bus and rail service overall.
While contributors reached a consensus that the forecast was understandably uncertain (one model predicted no snow and then 10 inches on consecutive runs six hours apart), some were still not persuaded that going to the moderate plan was necessary in the first place. Kelli Raboy said:
Going to the moderate snow plan was an overreaction, even for the worst-case forecasts. The moderate plan cuts a significant number of routes. The light snow plan would have been more reasonable.
Many people in this region rely on WMATA to get to work. When they cut bus routes far in advance of potential snow, it sends the message that WMATA is not a reliable option for transportation. I’m lucky to be able to telework when WMATA overreacts like this. Many people, especially the underserved in our communities, do not have that luxury.
From an operational standpoint, I understand the need to have a plan ready several hours in advance (so that employees and buses are in the right place at the right time). But that reasoning went out the window when WMATA changed their minds at the last minute anyway.
I also think they did a poor job communicating the changes. There was never any suggestion yesterday that the plan could change in the morning.
Matt Johnson agreed:
I think Metro is being overly cautious, and too much so in this case. The forecast was very uncertain (0-10” forecast), but Capital Weather Gang favored the “nuisance” end heavily, meaning that they thought the best chances were for very little snow.
Metro announced that they were going to “moderate” snow plan, which cuts service to many residents and businesses throughout the region long before forecasts were nailed down. And I suspect strongly that they were simply managing expectations. “Oh, look everybody, we’re doing more than we promised!” That’s not acceptable in this case, because as has been pointed out, the cancellation of much service was the last word anyone heard about it.
It would have been much more prudent for the agency to have said Monday night, “Given the uncertain forecast, Metrobus service and routes may be affected in the morning. Please check the website for up to date information in the morning. An announcement about service will be made no later than 5:00 am.”
Ned Russell added, “Residents should not have to check their transit options every morning of their commute. I imagine a lot of people are not in the habit of repeatedly checking WMATA’s status round-the-clock.”
What do you think?