Posts about VRE

WiFi to VRE?: VRE is looking at adding WiFi to its trains by 2015. In addition to giving service to riders, it would also help in safety and operations, potentially even saving money. (Examiner) (Comment)

And...: VRE raises fares by 3%. (Post) ... As it turns out, the half-mile circle around transit stations may not be the best measure of accessibility. (Half-Mile Circles) ... Vallejo, CA, will turn to the public for its budget process. (Times-Herald) (Comment)

VRE will raise prices: VRE will raise fares 3%, to cover inflation. The railroad enjoys a nearly 100% on-time rate, happy customers, and a relatively cheap fare. (Post) (Comment)

Railroad blocked: A stimulus project to build a third track near Quantico has stalled thanks to protracted discussions between CSX and the FRA. The project would relieve VRE and Amtrak congestion in the area. Funds expire September 30. (Examiner) (Comment)

VRE down, MARC up: After the transit benefit dropped from $230 to $125, VRE ridership went slightly down, while MARC's went up. The increase in gas prices could be counteracting the lower transit benefit. (Examiner) (Comment)

With more cars: VRE will buy eight Japanese railcars for $23.1 million to meet new demand and replace old equipment. The price was higher than expected as there was only 1 bidder. (Post) (Comment)

Trains run on time: VRE achieved its best on-time performance ever, with 92.9% of trains on time in 2011. Ridership was also strong. (Examiner) (Comment)

Transit

Which DC-area transit agencies offer open data?

by David Alpert • January 12, 2012 10:35 am

Projects like the Mobility Lab's real-time screens and Transit Near Me can help riders and boost transit usage, but they can only show information for agencies which provide open data. How do our region's agencies stack up?

Photo by rllayman on Flickr.

The table below lists the many transit agencies in the Washington region and their open data progress. In a nutshell, there are 2 kinds of open data: schedule data and real-time arrival data.

General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) files list schedules and the locations of stops and routes, powering applications like making maps or trip planners. Real-time arrival data lets applications tell riders how far away the bus actually is, for tools like smartphone apps or digital screens.

	Schedule data			Real-time data
	Public GTFS	Shapes in GTFS	On Google	Tracking	Tracking API
Metrorail	Here		and Bing		Custom
Metrobus		Most¹	and Bing		Custom
Circulator (DC)	WMATA²		WMATA²		Nextbus
ART (Arlington)	Here		In process		Connexionz
DASH (Alexandria)	Via email only³
Ride On (Montgomery)	Old?⁴				More info
The Bus (Prince George's)					Nextbus
MTA (Maryland) commuter bus	Here
MARC	Confusingly⁵			Here
Fairfax (County) Connector
CUE (Fairfax City)					Nextbus
Loudoun County Transit				Text/email alerts
PRTC
VRE	Unofficial⁶			Mix of GPS & manual⁷

¹ WMATA's GTFS file contains most Metrobus routes, but some paths cut diagonally across the grid over some long sections such as freeway or bridge segments of routes.

² Circulator route and schedule data is included as part of the WMATA GTFS feed. However, there are some quality issues such as route names.

³ DASH feed is not publicly available, but officials can provide it via email.

⁴ Ride On's feed no longer appears to be on their website. GTFS Data Exchange has cached a version from December 2010 which was apparently posted in a news release.

⁵ MARC lines are listed in the MTA Maryland feed as lines 300, 301, and 302, which doesn't very easily differentiate them for someone unfamiliar with their GTFS feed.

⁶ Someone not affiliated with VRE created a GTFS file in 2009, but it hasn't been updated since and VRE does not offer an official one.

⁷ VRE has a page with train status which lists some trains' positions through GPS and some from manual reports from the conductor.

What the columns mean

Creating public GTFS feeds (the 1st column) allows someone who's written an app to easily incorporate schedule and route data for a transit agency. GTFS has emerged as a national standard for representing transit feeds, and there's tremendous value in having as many agencies as possible support the same standard. That way, if someone writes an app in Chicago, they can make it work in Denver, Albany, or Miami at the same time.

Most of the transit agencies' feeds including the paths that the vehicles take, but some do not, like DASH. The 2nd column shows this information. Feeds without paths are still usable, but apps that visualize routes, like Transit Near Me, end up showing unsightly diagonal lines cutting across city blocks.

Agencies can also sign a contract with Google to have their routes and schedules on Google Maps. The 3rd column shows agencies which have done this. Some agencies put out their data files, but aren't willing to sign this contract because of indemnification or other clauses which Google unfortunately insists upon. On the flip side, some agencies sign up with Google but then don't publish the GTFS feed publicly.

The agency might provide it to those who ask, or might not, but this dissuades app creators from including this agency, and makes it harder for them to get regular updates. Every agency should strive to host a public and up-to-date GTFS feed on their site so that anyone building apps can easily incorporate that agency's services into the tool.

The other type of open data is real-time locations or predictions. To make this possible, agencies first have to deploy AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) technology on their buses or trains (the 4th column). The main obstacle is that this is somewhat expensive; a physical device has to go into each vehicle, and those devices then need some amount of maintenance over time.

Once an agency has tracking, it's relatively simple to offer a computer interface for apps to access and tell riders about this information (the 5th column). Most of the agencies with tracking offer such an interface, but while Ride On, MARC, and Loudoun Transit all have public tracking sites that provide some services to riders, but no way for other apps to tap into the information those sites contain.

What agencies can do

Agencies with red X's on this chart can start thinking about how to provide schedule and/or real-time open data. Creating GTFS files isn't extremely difficult, though it does require some staff time to actually do it. For agencies that use scheduling software, the manufacturers of that software often offer modules to export data as GTFS as well.

Some GTFS feeds could benefit from quality fixes. For example, WMATA's Metrorail GTFS file doesn't show the specific paths trains take, and paths are missing for a few bus routes. The "Transparent Metro Data Sets" Application Programming Interface (API), a special interface WMATA created to offer access to much of its data, does include the correct paths. But many people develop apps to access GTFS files for multiple cities. It's much less likely they will put in extra development effort to specifically pull just these route shapes from this unique API.

The Circulator's routes are part of the WMATA GTFS feed, which makes things even easier for apps than having to download a separate feed. One problem is that the route names are all cryptic: there's "DCDGR" for the Dupont-Georgetown-Rosslyn Circulator, or "DC98" for the route which replaced the former 98 bus. Those are fine for internal systems inside the agencies, but they aren't very clear to riders.

Agencies which have provided their data to Google but don't offer the feeds publicly (like DASH, Ride On, and MARC) should post those feeds on their websites and publicly link to the feeds. They are already creating the GTFS files for Google, so it's a trivial step to also let others download the same files.

WMATA also has much of the route data for other local bus systems in the region as well, which it uses in its trip planner. Agencies which don't have GTFS files can give WMATA permission to include their data in its GTFS feed, as the Circulator does.

Agencies with AVL systems already on their vehicles should set up APIs to give apps access to the locations or predictions, and agencies without AVL can work toward getting the budget necessary to deploy AVL.

What others can do

Transit industry associations and vendors which sell technology to transit agencies can all encourage open data to be part of any contract. Vendors can encourage agencies to open their data and provide services to do so, and associations can encourage agencies to ask their vendors for these services.

The industry can also help move toward a clear standard for bus tracking. GTFS has become a standard for schedule and route data because large numbers of agencies went ahead and offered GTFS files. But there is not yet a consensus around what format to use to offer real-time predictions.

WMATA built its own API which provides the data in a certain format. Circulator, The Bus, and CUE all use Nextbus for tracking, which has its own API. ART uses another service, Connexionz. This unfortunately means that anyone building a real-time application and wants to incorporate multiple services has to support at least 3 different APIs.

There are efforts to create such standards, like GTFS-Realtime, but this hasn't realized the same widespread adoption as GTFS, nor has any other standard.

It's still possible to build apps without a standard, and the Mobility Lab's real-time screen project does connect to all 3 different systems in our region. But that requires extra work, not just for the Mobility Lab but for every other app creator who wants to offer predictions for multiple transit agencies.

The easier we make it to build apps, the more we'll get. Ultimately, it would be great for one standard to emerge, and for the various vendors like Nextbus to agree to all offer data to apps in that same standard format.

Update: Commenter intermodal commuter pointed out the real-time status page for VRE. It combines some train positions from GPS and some from manual reports from conductors. There is not an API to access the data. I've corrected the chart.

Update 2: Commenter Adam noted that MARC is actually contained in the MTA Maryland GTFS file, but listed only as routes 300, 301, and 302, which we didn't realize were not commuter buses upon examining the feed. But you can see the MARC lines on Transit Near Me (for example, center around Union Station).

Also, ACCS Web Manager Joe Chapline posted a status update about ART's efforts to get into Google Transit; according to Chapline, this was delayed for a time due to contract issues, and now is awaiting action by the Google legal department, which I know from past personal experience is often understaffed and backlogged.

31 comments

Tags: ART, buses, Circulator, DASH, data openness, Fairfax Connector, Google, MARC, Metro, MTA Maryland, PRTC, Ride On, transit, VRE, WMATA

VRE going without Wi-Fi: VRE is backing off from plans to offer Wi-Fi on its trains. It was originally planned for 2011, but now it might not happen in 2012 due to funding constraints. (Examiner) (Comment)

VRE seeks more funding: VRE wants 3% more subsidies from local governments and a 3% fare hike to offset an expected drop in ridership following the transit benefits cut, cutbacks in state funding, and rising operating costs. (Examiner) (Comment)

And...: VRE is trying to combat fare evasion (Post) ... A new book looks at the history of lettering in the NYC subway, from mosaics to Helvetica (Brain Pickings, Stephen Miller) ... Amtrak is opening an exhibit on the Great Migration at Union Station (NBC Washington) ... Vienna moving forward on bike parking. (FABB) (Comment)

And...: Maryland's driver's manual now includes rules about sharing the road with cyclists. (FABB Blog) ... VRE employees use DC hotels for breaks during the day. (Examiner) ... DC ranked the 7th most walkable city in the US. (NBC Washington) ... A parking enforcement vehicle parked illegally. (City Paper) ... Who lives in LeDroit Park? (Left for LeDroit) (Comment)

Transit

DoD begins encouraging transit for BRAC commuters

by Dave Murphy • July 25, 2011 12:07 pm

The Department of Defense is now promoting alternatives to to the more than 5,800 employees relocating to Fort Meade in August due to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) changes.

Odenton MARC station. Photo by thisisbossi on Flickr.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) headquarters is moving from the Pentagon in Virginia to Fort Meade in Maryland, and represents a substantial number of the relocated jobs. Unlike the the Pentagon, which is adjacent to Metro's Blue and Yellow lines and one of the largest bus hubs in Arlington, Fort Meade is nearly transit-inaccessible.

Approximately 25 MARC trains (PDF) on the Penn Line stop daily at nearby Odenton Station Monday through Friday. Several organizations on Fort Meade offer shuttle service from the station to their facilities, which are about two to five miles from the station.

Virginia-based DISA workers certainly have no reason to celebrate their commute being lengthened up to 30 miles each way due to the move. But the commute might not be as daunting as expected thanks to a couple of commuting options that DISA and other DoD Agencies are pushing to their employees.

For commuters who live near VRE stations, there is a cross honor agreement with MARC, allowing riders on inbound VRE trains a free transfer to outbound MARC trains.

If, for instance, riders are coming from Woodbridge and going to Fort Meade, they only need a ticket to Union Station, where they can then board an outbound MARC train to Odenton for free. This is still long commute with two transfers (VRE to MARC, MARC to shuttle), but with the federal mass transit subsidy recently being raised to $230 a month, it can be done for no additional money out-of-pocket.

For those who can get to Union Station via Metro or bus, MARC has the Transit Link Card (TLC). For $102 in addition to a MARC monthly pass ($125 for Union Station to Odenton), the TLC will offer unlimited monthly ridership on any service that accepts SmarTrip or Charm Cards.

The monthly cost for those going to Fort Meade via Odenton is $227, which again can be covered in full by the federal mass transit subsidy. Additionally, the TLC card can be used on weekends and holidays, making it fiscally advantageous for Fort Meade commuters to potentially give up their cars all together.

MARC's TLC can be used with Metro, Metrobus, DC Circulator, the future DC Streetcar, ART, CUE, DASH, Fairfax Connector, Loudon County Commuter Bus, OmniRide, Ride-On, TheBus, the Baltimore Subway and Light Rail, and any MTA bus. This connectivity makes it a highly viable option for Washington and Baltimore commuters to other BRAC sites, including Aberdeen Proving Grounds, which is also served by the MARC Penn Line.

~~Currently, MARC's TLC is the only way to get an unlimited use pass from Metro.~~ MARC's TLC is the only pass that allows unlimited rides on multiple modes. Non-MARC Metro riders can use rail and bus passes which are fairly limited; several have recommended creating more flexible passes.

Will these services prevent a traffic nightmare from occurring? Probably not. MARC service is limited and does not run on weekends, and many employees relocating from Virginia are probably not keen on 2-hour commutes with multiple mode shifts.

DISA's move to Fort Meade isolates the agency from DoD headquarters and other related agencies in DC, Arlington, and Alexandria, which in turn means more and longer commutes for meetings and conferences. This will also be the case with most agencies that are moving from the DC core to transit-poor exurbs in the BRAC as land in the city core sits undeveloped.

Nevertheless, the fact that the DoD is beginning to recognize the importance of mass transit's role in providing an efficient way for employees to reach their facilities is an important step in the right direction.

15 comments

Tags: BRAC, commuter rail, commuting, Fort Meade, MARC, Maryland, Virginia, VRE

VRE bends over backwards: A freight train broke down in Alexandria yesterday blocking VRE trains. The railroad originated outbound trains at the Van Dorn Metro, offering to hold trains for customers who got stuck on Metro and to cover taxi costs for those who missed the contingency service. (Train Talk) (Comment)

Upping security: Metro and MTA said they've stepped up their security in the wake of bin Laden's death, though a Metro officer says it's smoke and mirrors. (WTOP, Twitter) ... VRE doesn't have a police force so it relies on commuting armed federal agents, who are given free rides. (Examiner) (Comment)

VRE adds seats for rush hour: A new agreement with CSX will allow VRE to add rail cars to rush hour trains (PDF) holding an additional 700 passengers each day. (mcs) (Comment)

And...: VRE management will hold an online forum at noon and will be at Union Station this afternoon to answer questions of riders. (Train Talk) ... Some Georgetown residents are forming a conservancy to care for the NPS-neglected Dumbarton Oaks Park. (Georgetown Metropolitan) (Comment)

Delaware gets more train service; what about Maryland: Local trains from Delaware to Philadelphia currently run Saturdays, and will now run Sundays as well. (Wilmington News Journal) Shouldn't MARC and VRE? Or even midday? ACT recently launched a campaign to add midday trains service to the two MARC lines that lack it. (Ben Ross) (Comment)

Buses up for cuts: Buses connecting Richmond to VRE in Fredericksburg will be cut entirely due to lack of funding. (Dr. Gridlock) ... Frederick County is also proposing cutting bus service and scheduling hearings nowhere near the bus routes. (Frederick News-Post, Ben Ross) (Comment)

VRE breaks ridership record: On Wednesday, VRE broke a milestone providing more than 20,000 trips, more than double the 10,000 trips per day goal that was set when the agency was founded in 1992. (Post, mcs) (Comment)

VRE mulls fare and policy changes: VRE wants to reduce the cost for regular riders to upgrade to select Amtrak trains and eliminate the discount for groups of 10 or more. They also want to restrict bicycles on board to allow only foldable bikes. All of these proposals are in reaction to capacity issues at the railroad. (Dr. Gridlock) (Comment)

And...: A Northern Neck delegate wants to jumpstart economic development in his region by adding a $1 surcharge to all VRE tickets originating in Manassas and Manassas Park. (WTOP) ... Newport News wants to build a new Amtrak station to accommodate further ridership growth that is expected in coming years. (Virginian-Pilot) ... A bike carcass continues to "rot" outside the MPD headquarters. What happened to the broken window theory? (TBD On Foot) (Comment)

Alternatives to extending Metro: BeyondDC says that for the price of extending Metro lines, as Connolly and Moran propose, Northern Virginia could build a lot of light rail lines and upgrade VRE so that it runs Metro-like frequencies. That could create networks like this and this. (Comment)

VRE moving on Wi-Fi: VRE will soon issue a request for proposals to install wireless internet routers in some of its train cars. The agency hopes to offer free Wi-Fi by springtime. (Dr. Gridlock) (Comment)

VRE station has a Spot(sylvania): Progress is slow, but Spotsylvania County is finally moving to open their own VRE station with construction complete by Feb 2012 or sooner. The county has chosen a site that contains industrial land slated for a mixed-use, walkable development. (Fredricksburg.com, Scott L) (Comment)

VRE breaks own record: Virginia Railway Express set a single-day ridership record Wednesday, with more than 19,322 passenger trips. (Post, mcs) (Comment)

Transportation service: VRE is working on adding free Wi-Fi (PDF) to its trains (mcs) ... Based on feedback, the "Hipster Express" will run directly to Brooklyn instead of stopping in Manhattan (TBD) ... CaBi's $50 annual introductory rate ends October 31. (Gavin) (Comment)

VRE will leave you behind: In a move that will help it meet on-time goals, VRE conductors have been instructed to leave the station at the scheduled time, even if they see passengers running to catch the train. (Post) (Comment)

VRE Slowing: VRE's on-time performance dropped to 77% in June. That's a 10% decline since May and a 20% decline since March. (WTOP, Gavin) (Comment)

Ride the Army train: The Army may use a train to transport troops between two forts in Virginia using VRE cars. It would take 4,000 buses and 320 trucks off I-95. (AP) (Comment)

And...: Amtrak will continue operating VRE for two more weeks, because Keolis isn't ready, leading to lots of finger-pointing (Kytja Weir/Examiner) ... Martin O'Malley and Bob Ehrlich are tied in a new poll (Alan Suderman/Examiner) ... Unless Congress acts, transit riders will go back to having a smaller pretax commuting benefit than drivers. (Renata Silberblatt/Mobilizing the Region) (Comment)

Fighting over VRE: VRE is about to switch from having Amtrak operate its trains to French company Keolis Rail Systems, but Keolis is not ready on schedule. The VRE Board is accusing Amtrak of interfering with the transfer, like offering bonuses to employees to not switch to Keolis and raising qualification standards. (Fredericksburg.com) (Comment)

VRE getting express, not longer trains: VRE will add an express train, and it will stop in Prince William County. However, after riders complained, VRE backed off a proposal to end some trains at L'Enfant Plaza, where there's storage space for longer trains. They might try to buy space near Union Station for more train storage. How about getting through-running with MARC going? (Post) (Comment)

Broad Run garage a white elephant?: VRE wants to build a $22 million parking garage at Broad Run, the last station on the line. Your Piece of the Planet would rather spend the money to enable TOD around a different station, especially since VRE is likely to extend that line in the future to the areas the drivers are coming from. (Comment)

Public Spaces

Weekend video: VRE 2010, San Francisco 1903

by David Alpert • March 6, 2010 9:12 am

On Friday's WAMU Politics Hour, Prince William Chairman Corey Stewart (R) discussed his opposition to a proposed VRE express train that would skip Prince William entirely.

Tom Sherwood asked if VRE is "working" or "making money." To the first question, Stewart replied, absolutely.

No form of [transportation] makes money. Even roadways are subsidized. ... So the question is, is it cost effective, and compared to other forms of [transportation] along the 95 corridor, the answer to that question is yes, because it's absolutely essential. It does take thousands of cars off 95 and 395 and Route 1. Thousands of people depend on VRE every day to get to work.

At the other end of the history spectrum, JTS sends along this video from San Francisco, 1905, just a year before the fire. Streetcars, private cars, pedestrians and cyclists are all sharing Market Street.

It's chaotic, but yet orderly at the same time. The libertarian-leaning Ludwig von Mises Institute calls it "a beautiful image of freedom."

23 comments

Tags: Corey Stewart, Prince William, public spaces, San Francisco, video, Virginia, VRE

VRE gains Gainesville study: VRE authorized a $2.7 million contract to perform an environmental study to extend service 11 miles into the Gainesville area. (Post, MCS) (Comment)

Transit

Metrorail to run most service tomorrow

by David Alpert • February 11, 2010 7:55 pm

WMATA.com is currently only sporadically available, probably because everyone is trying to load the press release they just posted about tomorrow's service.

The short summary: Metrorail will open at 5 am and run on all lines except the Orange west of Ballston and the Red north of Medical Center. Trains will run with longer headways so prepare for crowds. Most but not all of the bus routes running today will also run tomorrow, and WMATA will add more as roads become passable.

Below is the complete press release they just sent out. Social media users, please star/retweet/whatever this (short URL is http://bit.ly/b2YWpd) so other people can get this important information.

Update: Matt Johnson has created a map showing tomorrow's service:

Update 2: MARC has no Brunswick or Camden Line service. The Penn Line is running on the "S" schedule. Trains 423, 427, 431, 414, and 416 are cancelled. VRE is running the "S" schedule on both lines.

The Metrorail system will open at 5 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 12, with limited service and will close at midnight instead of 3 a.m. to allow work crews the additional overnight hours to continue to clear the tracks, rail yards and rail "switches," which are critical track components that allow trains to maneuver around problem areas by switching tracks. A limited number of Metrobus routes will be in service Friday with the number expected to grow as more roadways become passable. MetroAccess trips will begin at 6:45 a.m., however the usual door-to-door service will be shifted to curb-to-curb service if it is not safe to offer door-to-door service.
Nine of Metro's 86 stations will remain closed to start the day on Friday as work crews continue to dig out the tracks, many of which have snow drifts of up to six feet.
Metrorail service to start Friday morning will include all Green, Yellow and Blue line stations. The Red Line will operate between Medical Center and Glenmont Metrorail stations with Grosvenor-Strathmore, White Flint, Twinbrook, Rockville and Shady Grove Metrorail stations remaining closed due to heavy snow that remains on the tracks. The Orange Line will operate between New Carrollton and Ballston Metrorail stations with East Falls Church, West Falls Church-VT/UVA, Dunn Loring-Merrifield and Vienna/Fairfax-GMU Metrorail stations remaining closed, also due to heavy snow on the tracks, including snow drifts of three to six feet.
Metrorail trains will operate at 20- to 25-minute intervals above ground and 10- to 15-minute intervals below ground. The longer than usual intervals are a result of 35 mph speed restrictions and the snow-covered switches.
Approximately 70 percent of parking spaces at Metrorail stations will be available for automobiles as many surface parking spaces are being used to pile snow to make other spaces available for automobiles. The top levels of 22 Metrorail parking garages are not expected to be available for parking. Work crews will address those top levels starting Friday.
Summary of Metrorail service expected for Friday, Feb. 12
Red Line limited service: Medical Center to Glenmont

Orange Line limited service: Ballston to New Carrollton

Blue Line all stations open: Franconia-Springfield to Largo Town Center

Green Line all stations open: Greenbelt to Branch Avenue

Yellow Line all stations open: Huntington to Fort Totten

Metrobus service
Metrobus will operate starting at its normal time on Friday with most buses sticking to streets along snow emergency routes. Buses will serve more neighborhoods as the streets become passable. The routes listed below have been in service since Thursday afternoon with more routes expected to be operating Friday. As the Metrobus system expands to include more routes, those routes will be posted on Metro's Web site, www.metroopensdoors.com.
Customers are reminded to please use caution near bus stops as many remain under ice and snow. Local jurisdictions are responsible for clearing bus stops. Local residents can help their neighbors by shoveling the bus stops along the sidewalks near their homes so that people are not standing in the icy streets while traffic is passing.
Bus routes operating in the District of Columbia
31 (Friendship Heights to Foggy Bottom-GWU)
32 and 36 (Friendship Heights to Potomac Ave)
34 (Archives to Branch Ave)
52 and 54 (From 14th Street and Colorado Ave to L'Enfant Plaza)
64 (Fort Totten to Georgia Ave-Petworth)
70 (Silver Spring to Canal and P Street, SW)
71 (Silver Spring to Archives) will terminate at Canal and P Street, SW
79 (Silver Spring to Archives)
80 (Fort Totten to Gallery Pl-Chinatown)
82 (Rhode Island Ave to Gallery Pl-Chinatown)
P6 (Anacostia to Eckington)
S4 (Silver Spring to Federal Triangle)
U8 (Capitol Heights to Benning Heights)
X2 (Minnesota Ave to Union Station)
V7 line (Deanwood to Potomac Ave)
Bus routes operating in Maryland
J2 (Bethesda to Silver Spring)
P12 (Eastover to Addison Road), bypassing United Medical Center
Q2 (Silver Spring to Wheaton)
Y5, Y7 and Y8 (Wheaton to Leisure World)
Z8 and Z9 (Silver Spring to Briggs Chaney Road Park and Ride
Bus routes operating in Virginia
1C (Fair Oaks to Dunn Loring)
2C (Washington Boulevard to Vienna)
16 line (Pentagon to Baileys Crossroads)
28A (Alexandria to Tysons Corner), bypassing Seven Corners and Southern Towers
MetroAccess
MetroAccess trips will begin at 6:45 a.m., however the usual door-to-door service will be shifted to curb-to-curb service if it is not safe to offer door-to-door service.
How to get Updates on Winter Weather Conditions
There are a variety of ways for customers to stay informed during a major storm. Metro constantly updates local news media of Metro service changes. Information is also available on Metro's home page at www.metroopensdoors.com. Customers can also subscribe to e-Alerts and receive up-to-date service disruption information on Metrorail and MetroAccess.
News release issued at 7:04 pm, February 11, 2010.