Transit
Beware engineer-think on late night hours
Just as some traffic engineers can fall into traps like viewing roadways as moving cars rather than moving people, transit engineers can lapse into thinking about their system in terms of how it best serves the trains that roam the tracks than the people who ride those trains.
Photo by outlan2000 on Flickr.
When he became chair of the WMATA Board one year ago, Peter Benjamin said, "Metro's job is not to run buses and trains. It is to move people, to provide mobility, and to create transportation alternatives for the region."
Finding ways to get more maintenance done on Metro is a laudable goal, but Metro operations head Dave Kubicek's suggestion to suspend late-night Metro service altogether teeters on the edge of putting the convenience of the operations department over the needs of riders.
A letter from a retired Metro employee to Unsuck DC Metro absolutely places engineer convenience ahead of the actual purpose of a transit system:
Metro's decision to operate trains as late as they do on the weekends was the second most misguided decision the authority has ever made. It was a cave in to politicians on the board who know nothing about rail and want nothing more than to spout platitudes to their constituents that they live in a "world-class city."You know what else is a two-track system? Paris. Moscow. London (except for two very small pieces). Many others. In fact, more than 2 tracks is extremely rare worldwide.World class in some ways, maybe, but Metro? Hardly.
Metro was never conceived to be a "world class" subway, at least according to what we think world class is in 2011. It was conceived to bring workers downtown in the morning and take them home at night. Sorry to break it to you, but that's how it's built. ...
It is a smart, if temporarily unpopular move, to close Metro at midnight, and they should never let it run until 3 again.
Most world-class cities do have more lines, so they can shut down some lines and people can use others. London's lines are very close together in the center city. So are Paris's, plus they have RER as well as the Metro. Berlin has the U-bahn and S-bahn.
We often compare Metro to New York, but sometimes that leads to drawing the wrong conclusions. New York, by the way, does sometimes close down some of the tracks on their 4-track lines (or 1 or 2 on their 2-track lines), but not every night. Most lines, most nights, run all night. (They don't run most express services all night, but still aren't doing any maintenance on those express tracks).
Why, then, does Kubicek want to close the system at midnight every day?
This is the key issue. There's a big difference between shutting down some lines, some of the time, to do extended repairs, and shutting down every line at midnight. Kubicek says he has some people unable to do the most important work because of the hours. Would they be working on all five lines every single weekend?
It could make sense to shut down even, say, one line on weekends for a few months or more if that will get that line substantially back to good repair. But Metro should only shut down what it absolutely needs to while it puts every possible maintenance person into the shut-down area.
There are the closures that will really benefit maintenance, and then there are the closures that will just make Kubicek's job easier. Right now, we can't tell the difference.
Benjamin told the RAC that sometimes Metro staff do fall into this trap of thinking about the system in terms of moving the trains instead of moving the people. A friend who works for a transit company said a number of employees there come from a freight operator, and they preferred moving freight because it doesn't complain.
Having no weekend hours would certainly save some work for Metro management. The scheduling would be simpler. They wouldn't have to communicate varying weekend closures or explain to the staff how to make the proper announcements. If only Metro structured its service around the needs of its managers, then things would be so much better... from the perspective of the managers.
Unsuck's letter writer blames politicians for getting Metro to play a bigger role in our region than it did when it opened. If politicians are the ones who dream big while the engineers want to cut everything back and make it fit into a simple but narrow box, then we need more politicians, not fewer.
 | David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington. He has had a lifelong interest in great cities and great communities. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.   |
Comments
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Saving money is one thing. But I'm skeptical that fewer hours equals a faster, more reliable system until we see hard numbers showing what they'd do with those six hours/week that they can't do otherwise.
by David S. on Feb 15, 2011 4:01 pm
by charlie on Feb 15, 2011 4:08 pm
by Jasper on Feb 15, 2011 4:10 pm
If the Metrorail system were not configured such that single-tracking in passenger service was feasible, we'd see even more weekend and early evening closures of portions of lines, with the attendant bus bridges and severe delays. So, while we may not be able to operate a 24-hour service like New York, if it were not for the Metrorail system having been designed the way it was, we'd see even more closures for maintenance. Instead, the design of Metrorail makes it possible for WMATA to provide an (admittedly poor) service by single-tracking in many instances. Single-tracking during evening and weekend hours may be inconvenient for riders, but it is certainly less inconvenient than a full closure. Returning to David's point, while it may be expensive or labor-intensive for WMATA to operate a single-tracked service through a work area in lieu of closing a part or all of the system early, it's certainly better for riders than bus service, and WMATA should be cognizant of that fact.
by Kurt Raschke on Feb 15, 2011 4:13 pm
It can take up to an hour to tag out, set conditions, remove interferences so that you can actually get real work done, and it probably takes almost the same amount of time to put everything back once the repair or replacement is complete.
These extra three hours aren't important just because they're extra maintenance time, it's that they're maintenance time that's available in the controlling path. If Metro has a six hour job that can be divided arbitrarily, it can be done in three of these two-hour controlling path windows, which would burn a total of twelve hours of work. If they had a longer window, they might be able to get it done in one night.
Moreover, there are some jobs that no matter how hard you try, you cannot divide into smaller jobs that fit in two hour windows. No matter how hard you try, you must have a long window to do a complex job.
There's also the issue of problems that are found once you get into the work. What if you spend that time setting up just to find that the job is going to take a lot longer than two hours to complete because the item has deteriorated more than you expected. Now you have the unhappy decision to either delay the system opening on time, or doing a half-ass job to get everything put back together, or something worse.
It's really a shame that Metro's reputation for doing stuff right is so very low, otherwise their argument that they need the time for maintenance to return to a state of good repair would be better understood.
by Michael Perkins on Feb 15, 2011 4:15 pm
by Joey on Feb 15, 2011 4:16 pm
When I hear the engineers say "We need to stop running late-night service," I hear "We have a huge backlog of maintenance to work through, and not enough time or resources to complete it."
A good manager will hear the first statement, and interpret it as the second, and help guide the engineers toward solving the problem without compromising the mission of the business or public service.
Sarles needs to be asking "Why do you want to shut down at midnight? What problems do you hope to resolve by doing so? Can we develop an alternate route to solving those problems without compromising service or breaking the bank?"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only repairs that necessitate a full closure are switch replacements. Can't the rest be done by single-tracking?
by andrew on Feb 15, 2011 4:16 pm
You are drinking the Unsuck Kool-Aid on this one.
"Metro sucks - so let's give them neither the money NOR the time to maintain it properly." That is the basic premise of your argument and the comments so far.
I do, however, think you have a point about selectively shutting down lines for major repairs. I could even see them shutting down everything outside the core to do maintenance from time to time. Not to mention that keeping Metro open late at night is a money loser to begin with.
by Glenn on Feb 15, 2011 4:18 pm
I don't think anyone's arguing they don't need, sometimes, longer blocks of time without train service to fix things (or to identify problems).
The problem is that the engineers are using this to argue that the entire system should be shut down every Friday and Saturday night, whether or not specific maintenance is needed everywhere.
by Joey on Feb 15, 2011 4:18 pm
If you want those longer periods to get bigger jobs done, can't you just close one big section of a line (red line from Bethesda-Shady Grove, or the whole red line) for certain weekend nights rather than have the entire Metro system closed permanently from midnight to 3 on weekends?
by MLD on Feb 15, 2011 4:26 pm
Or will that be an inconvenience for the late night drinkers who too polished to travel on anything other than something that rides on rails?
by TGEoA on Feb 15, 2011 4:28 pm
Michael Perkins makes a good point, that some jobs require more time. And WMATA does have a backlog.
However, somehow, every single system in the United States (except Baltimore) has less downtime than Metro during the week. And yet, they somehow get the work done.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 15, 2011 4:30 pm
Andrew had it perfect when he said:
"Sarles needs to be asking "Why do you want to shut down at midnight? What problems do you hope to resolve by doing so? Can we develop an alternate route to solving those problems without compromising service or breaking the bank?"
We should question goals, not policies. Most people here are against shutting off late-night service. We've heard that from GGW contributors, news, and randos on the internet (me!).
Andrew also had it right on tone--the tone of this article was borderline hostile toward the idea. I hope you might consider adopting his approach. Use the site to ask his question: what do we hope to achieve by eliminating late-night service? Are there ways to do it that aren't so disruptive?
But if it's necessary, it's necessary. Life will continue. We want to work with WMATA and the CEO to make it happen efficiently.
by WRD on Feb 15, 2011 4:31 pm
by Randall M. on Feb 15, 2011 4:32 pm
If more time is needed to do work than the nighttime allows, then take the time that is necessary to do the work.
The default option should be a high level of service that is interrupted to perform maintenance - not a lower level of service that we have just in case we need to do maintenance.
by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2011 4:37 pm
Mr. Alpert. You're in over your head when you start questioning engineering expertise as a journalist. It's completely arrogant to think that you know more than an engineer working in the system. Question the rationale for the decision given the time-money-goals tradoff, but saying "engineers don't care about people only things" is insulting.
by eb on Feb 15, 2011 4:46 pm
by David Alpert on Feb 15, 2011 4:47 pm
The most important point David makes in this post is that shutting down all lines at midnight on the weekends won't facilitate repairs system-wide in the five or seven hours it's closed. Metro doesn't have the staff to do this. Rather, as David points out, Metro can close certain lines, or even certain parts of a given line at midnight on the weekends. Making closure announcements would be rather simple, and would be like an extension of major work that Metro does over holiday weekends.
by Jamie Scott on Feb 15, 2011 4:47 pm
This post does not question engineering expertise. Quite the contrary, actually. It argues that the engineering expertise at Metro should be working around the policy goals for the system (moving people) rather than setting those goals based on some nebulous conception of expertise.
by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2011 4:51 pm
by Ryan on Feb 15, 2011 4:54 pm
by JES on Feb 15, 2011 4:56 pm
many many people who work in various service sectors use the metro to commute, including weekend mornings. Opening metro at 9 am would disproportionately impact them
by Birdie on Feb 15, 2011 5:11 pm
Sadly, that inference seems right on. The WMATA honchos need to get their heads screwed on straight -- they are to serve the public first, to the best of their abilities, and then only themselves.
On another point, I'm confused by the 13,400 figure widely reported as the number of late-night weekend Metro riders. Is this an average number per night or an average per weekend?
by Anon on Feb 15, 2011 5:23 pm
by movement on Feb 15, 2011 5:38 pm
by Lance on Feb 15, 2011 6:17 pm
by jcm on Feb 15, 2011 6:48 pm
by Kate on Feb 15, 2011 6:48 pm
Are these the same engineers behind the system that lost whole trains off the grid? Are these the same managers who didn't notice the missing trains?
by Turnip on Feb 15, 2011 7:09 pm
Everyone from LBJ to Henry Weese wanted our subway to be special and fitting of the nation's capitol. DC deserves the world-class system it was meant to have.
by John M on Feb 15, 2011 7:13 pm
What I'm hearing when I read what the engineer has to say is that we're trying to use Metro for something which it was constructed to be. We built a system capable of bringing commuters in in the morning and taking them home at night ... Not to be operating long hours and continuously with heavy loads. An analogy would be like trying to use a coffee maker intended for home use in a commercial application.
Except the engineer is full of it. Metro is a heavy rail subway system. Any differences in planning as to Metro's role only affected things like station location and line routing - it has nothing to do with the physical systems of the railroad.
It's a red herring argument and deserves to be called out as such.
by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2011 7:17 pm
I live at the Glenmont end of the Red Line. It would be an inconvenience, sure. But in the interest of operating most efficiently and keeping the tracks in the best condition, I'd be willing to suck it up and take the bus.
I think the ideal solution would be to run express buses at that time that run along the Metro line and stop only near Metro stations. Traffic wouldn't be an issue, and running buses at that time would probably be cheaper than running the trains.
Remember: They're moving people, not buses or trains. Is everyone so married to the trains that they refuse to take a bus?
by Thrilhouse on Feb 15, 2011 8:49 pm
by W Jordan on Feb 15, 2011 9:11 pm
Agreed, but only the second that road users also get charged market value for their use of the road.
Or to put it differently, how come the engineers working on the 14th St bridge can work around traffic, but WMATA engineers can not?
by Jasper on Feb 15, 2011 10:12 pm
Read the NTSB report. It's a lot more complicated than that. The trains would more "flicker" rather than disappear altogether. This only became a huge problem if one of them stopped while invisible, which is what happened at Fort Totten, just as another train was approaching around a blind curve.
This is a management problem, because an engineer observed the same problem on a segment of track between Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn a few years earlier, mostly identified the cause, and developed a software tool to detect how often this occurred. The management neglected to do much further to address the issue, the underlying causes were not corrected, the tool was not developed into a constantly-monitored automatic system where faulty impedance bonds and track circuits could be identified, tested, and replaced as necessary.
I don't think that David, nor anybody else on this blog (no matter how qualified) can comment on exactly what Metro's engineers want to do with an extra 3 hours at night. Those questions need to be asked, and a dispassionate analysis needs to be done from within Metro's organization, so that the executives can have good information to make decisions upon. All we can do here is speculate.
We can also look at other Metro systems around the world.
Paris opens at 5:30AM each morning, and closes at 1:15AM during the week, and 2:15 on the weekends.
Moscow closes at 1AM on all days (?)
London closes between 12 and 1 on all days.
by andrew on Feb 15, 2011 11:18 pm
Space between center tracks to add third track if needed in the future.
Switch tracks after every station or space for them.
Space to add a 2nd or 3rd entrance at all stations.
More than one connection to every branch of the system (ex. how the Blue and Yellow or Red and Green/Yellow meet twice)
A way to route trains around downtown if need be.
by kk on Feb 16, 2011 12:00 am
Find some of those answers here: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/3760/
Other answers you can find by reading Zachary Schrag's book, Great Society Subway.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 16, 2011 7:32 am
I think that leaving room for express tracks would be prohibitively expensive.
*THAT SAID,* Metro has learned a few lessons. The Silver Line will include a switch between every station, and 3 sets of pocket tracks (as a point of comparison, the current system only has 3 sets of pockets itself, plus 2 3-track stations).
by andrew on Feb 16, 2011 9:36 am
My question is this though. Why can't we just single track for extensive periods beginning earlier in the night? Shut down one of the two tracks and perform work on the other track unimpeded. When you've finished with that track move onto the other. Metro already does this to some extent and I don't see why it couldn't be expanded. If it works during the day currently with no delays or very minor delays then it should work at night too.
I think most of us would rather encounter delays due to single tracking after say 9 PM than experience earlier shutdowns. It's a compromise sure, but it's a far better one that shutting down entirely.
by Craig on Feb 16, 2011 9:45 am
by Phil on Feb 16, 2011 9:58 am
by David Alpert on Feb 16, 2011 10:07 am
There will not be an interlocking between every station on the Silver Line.
For example, there is not interlocking between Tysons East and Tysons 123. Nor is there one between Tysons 7 and Tysons West.
Interlocking spacing on the Silver Line will be similar to what it is on the current system, which is not based on station spacing, but on track distance (though interlockings are typically grouped with the nearest station).
That's actually why there will be 3 interlockings between Tysons West and Wiehle Ave. Because the distance is so great.
As for pocket tracks, I don't know what you mean by "sets" but pockets are located:
*The center track at National Airport is no longer connected at its north end to Track 2 (outbound) or at its south end to Track 1 (inbound), so it cannot operate like a normal pocket would.
In phase 1 of the Silver Line, there will be one pocket: west of Wiehle Ave. Phase 2 will include a pocket west of Dulles Airport and a side-track, which could operate like a pocket, east of Herndon-Monroe.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 16, 2011 10:33 am
The Largo and Franconia pocket tracks don't really count as far as operations go, because they're located at the terminals of their various lines. You can't use those pocket tracks to short-turn a train since they're already at the end of the line.
I'd also note that almost all of the other pocket tracks in the system were at one point the temporary termini of their various lines.
@Phil - how about $17 for a real book?
by Alex B. on Feb 16, 2011 10:37 am
by Phil on Feb 16, 2011 10:40 am
Great Society Subway is certainly worth $17. But if you don't want to pay that, there are alternative ways of reading the book.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 16, 2011 10:42 am
If you subtract Franconia, Largo, and National Airport, you still get 6 pocket tracks. That's larger than 3.
As for end-of-line stations, that's true to one degree, but it doesn't follow a pattern, mainly because the placement of pockets was not solely dependent on a part of the line being a terminus for any period of time.
Some stations, on the other hand, were terminals for significantly long periods of time, yet never had pocket tracks. That's because it didn't make strategic sense to put pockets there or for budgetary/engineering reasons.
Gallery Place, for instance, was a terminal for 8 years for the Yellow Line (1983-1991). Ballston was a terminal from 1979-1986. Anacostia for a decade from 1991-2001.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 16, 2011 10:59 am
Taxi cabs are not a viable alternative for Black people. I speak from first hand experience and the experience from others. When given the option of picking up a Black patron or white patron, taxi cabs invariable opt for the non-Black patron. This fact should not necessarily influence Metro's decision but suggesting that taxi cabs are a viable alternative is simply not the case. As a Metro rider for the last 8 years, I am advocating my own self interest knowing catching a cab is nearly impossible.
by James on Feb 18, 2011 6:46 am
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