Starting on Saturday and lasting through July 3rd, Metro is fully closing the tracks from the Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue stations to Eastern Market, along with those between Rosslyn and Arlington National Cemetery. This phase of SafeTrack is likely to be much harder on riders than the first, which wraps up today.

SafeTrack Surge 2 service reductions. Image from WMATA.

According to a Metro presentation on SafeTrack, almost 300,000 riders will feel the effects of the Surge 2 closures each day. That number includes both riders that use the segments of the Orange, Silver, or Blue Lines that will have no service as well as those who use the lines in places that will simply see fewer trains.

Blue Line trains from Franconia will only run as far as Arlington Cemetery, trains from Largo will only to Benning Road, and trains from New Carrollton will stop at Minnesota Avenue. The shutdown will effectively cut the the Blue Line in half. Instead of traveling through Rosslyn to get to DC, passengers will have to take the Yellow Line up through L’Enfant Plaza and transfer to another train for the rest of the trip.

Metro is offering up shuttle bus service between the affected stations that will run every 5-10 minutes depending on the location. The single bus shuttle between Rosslyn and Arlington Cemetery, however, will only run every 12 minutes, and only operate midday.

Metro will be increasing some bus service on some routes, including the T18 and the X9. Arlington is also upping buses on its ART 43 route, and around 40 buses will be running Metro’s shuttle bus service during the shutdown. But a single train car holds 100 or more people, and many more people ride the trains than will be able to fit into the available buses.

WMATA’s website has very thorough information about alternative transportation, including lists of all the bus routes that service each closed station as well as Rosslyn and those east of Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue.

Metro’s estimates on per-car crowding during Surge 2.

Metro officials have asked and continue to ask for riders on the affected lines to take alternate transportation if at all possible so that those for whom it is not can ride trains. The presentation slide above shows that if all Metro passengers took their normal routes, trains from McPherson Square to Metro Center would pack almost 200 people per car— Metro considers a car with 120 people to be crowded, and it’s likely not physically possible to fit 195 (or even 147) people into a single rail car without massive effort.

During the disruptive 16-day Surge 2, passengers are recommended to stay calm and prepared. Carry a towel, in other words, and find the best way to travel that you can.

There are numerous rider tools that can be used to stay on top of the delays, and being informed will be critical to getting through this with your sanity in check.