Posts about Buses

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The 16th Street buses are overcrowded along the southern part of the S-series Metrobus line in the morning rush. Riders hoping to catch a bus south of Columbia Heights frequently watch one bus after another pass by without stopping, too full to take on any new passengers.

WMATA head bus planner Jim Hamre and his team presented the new route options at a meeting last night organized by Dupont ANC commissioner Kishan Putta.

Both options begin around Meridian Hill, serve all bus stops along 16th Street from there to Lafayette Park, and then run back north without stopping, in order to start over as quickly as possible.

Frequency versus coverage

WMATA only has 2 buses available to run this service, so the options present a choice of high frequency versus greater coverage.

The first option, on the left, is the easiest to operate and provides the greatest frequency. Buses in the morning rush hour would come every 15 minutes, in addition to the existing bus service. But the line would end at either U or V Street, and the crowding problems start farther north.

The second option, on the right, extends up Meridian Hill to Euclid Street. This would reach more passengers, but adds time and complication. Buses would only be able to run every 20 minutes at best. They would also get delayed more often because the streets around Meridian Hill are only a single lane and are often blocked by other vehicles.

Another potential complication for the second option is how buses would get back north. While northbound buses for the U/V Street option could use 14th Street, the only way to keep even 20 minute headways for the Euclid Street option would be to run northbound using 15th Street. 15th Street doesn't currently have any buses, so residents there may have concerns.

Interestingly, Hamre said the worst crowding problems only appear during the morning rush, so this new supplement may only run in the morning. Evening rush hour buses are crowded too, but less excessively so. Riders aren't usually being left behind in the evening.

There was widespread consensus at the meeting to support a rush hour supplement, but residents disagreed over which option is better. Eventually WMATA may be able to add service farther north and still provide good frequencies, but they'll need more buses and more money to do it. In the meantime, they have to make do with only 2 buses, which means trade-offs.

Either way, riders on 16th Street should benefit. Even those from farther north should see improved service, since the buses they're already on will move faster near downtown.

Theoretically the new route will be called the S3, although Hamre didn't commit to that last night.

If everything goes smoothly, the new buses could roll down 16th Street as early as March 24. If there are delays then it could take longer.

Ultimately, Hamre said, WMATA also hopes to start "headway scheduling" on 16th Street. That means they would try to keep buses a certain distance apart rather than meet a predefined schedule. That works for Circulator buses, and for the 70s and 90s series Metrobuses, but it will take longer to implement, and is being considered a separate issue.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Before the trial, I told the judge that I had written several articles on Metro, some critical, for a local blog. I suspected that WMATA's attorney would strike me from the jury as a result. However, after describing the topics of each article to WMATA's attorney, both attorneys declined to strike me from the jury.

After trials are completed, jurors are permitted to discuss or not discuss the trial as they choose.

What happened?

We heard the testimony of the plaintiff, Cynthia Lee, a 57-year old African American woman who lives in southeast DC. Ms. Lee has lived on disability income for 23 years since a 1990 car accident left her in constant pain. She has had several neck surgeries, and is seen regularly by orthopedic surgeons and pain specialists at GWU.

She lives with her fiancée of 7 years, Calvin Thomas, and his 7-year old granddaughter. A home health care aide helps her on weekdays. One juror said that "she receives better medical care than our troops coming back from Iraq."

The morning of the crash, she took MetroAccess from her home to GWU where her doctor discussed her continued pain and suggested she resume physical therapy. Afterwards, her fiancee picked her up from GWU in their van and they drove towards Northeast DC to pick up his granddaughter from his sister's house.

As they crossed North Capitol Street on K Street, a D8 bus headed westbound on K Street turned left onto North Capitol. Mr. Thomas slowed his van in the intersection as cars in front of him slowed down, but the Metrobus kept turning and sideswiped the van.

The physical damages to the Metrobus and the van were slight—a little paint scraped off and a small dent. It was hard to imagine that the force of the impact could have even injured passengers. The police were called, but no police report was filed.

Ms. Lee visited the emergency room at Washington Hospital Center the next day, complaining of pain following the accident, and received a CT scan. Five days after the accident, she returned to her orthopedic surgeon at GWU who assured her the rods and screws in her neck from previous surgeries were still in place.

An ambulance-chasing attorney, or a woman asserting her rights?

At some point during the week after the accident, Ms. Lee came into contact with a personal injury attorney. The attorney referred Ms. Lee to a different orthopedist in Ft. Washington, MD.

The orthopedist in Ft. Washington had an initial consultation with Ms. Lee, which cost $400. He then ordered $1,600 worth of X-rays that Washington Hospital Center had not ordered. He prescribed physical therapy of heating pads, cold packs, and electric stimulation, to be administered in his office.

3 weeks after the accident, the Ft. Washington orthopedist ordered a $2,000 MRI that showed no injury. A month and 7 physical therapy appointments later, Ms. Lee reported that her pain had not subsided, and the physical therapy ended.

Nonetheless, the Ft. Washington orthopedist brought her in for 6 additional follow-up visits from October 2010 through January 2011, none of which resulted in new diagnoses or prescriptions. By that point, Ms. Lee said her pain had subsided to pre-accident levels. The total bill? $10,200.

Judge Maurice Ross gave us clear instructions. If we found WMATA negligent in the accident, and found the accident to be the proximate cause of Ms. Lee's damages and injuries, then we must quantify reasonable medical costs, inconvenience to Ms. Lee, and any pain and suffering Ms Lee. endured.

Was WMATA negligent?

After all of the closing arguments, the jury began their deliberations with a vote on the first question. Did WMATA negligence cause the collision? 5 jurors voted yes, while 3 voted no.

I voted yes, and was surprised at the vote. Wasn't it obvious that WMATA caused the accident? Hadn't WMATA's attorney even said that he would defer to the jury's decision on negligence, that his objection was to the amount of any damages?

The 3 dissenting jurors said this was a "no-fault" accident. There was hardly any property damage at all. The parties should have just walked away.

We objected that "no-fault" accidents aren't actually no-fault, the parties just declare them to be "no-fault" to keep their insurance premiums from rising. The dissenting jurors ultiamtely agreed, and the jury assigned negligence to WMATA with an 8-0 vote.

Did the accident cause damages to Ms. Lee?

The jury then voted on whether the accident was the "proximate cause" of any injuries or damages, a vote that went down 1-7. I was the 1.

Many of the 7 jurors voting yes argued that the nudge to the van wouldn't have injured passengers, but I argued that Ms. Lee was not just any passenger. She was more susceptible to injury than most passengers. In the words of Metro's own orthopedic surgeon expert witness, she was "a compromised host."

The 7 jurors argued Ms. Lee was clearly being used by her attorney and the attorney's physician, and that no award money would ever make it to Ms. Lee anyway.

I countered that no evidence had been provided contradicting Ms. Lee's claim to be in more intense pain following the accident. WMATA didn't challenge her claim to be in greater pain following the accident. So what basis does the jury have for saying she is lying?

All 8 jurors then agreed, some reluctantly, that they must conclude that Ms. Lee suffered injuries caused by WMATA. But they were hesitant to award more than a small award, convinced that all the money would go to Ms. Lee's attorney and the Ft. Washington physician to whom she had been referred.

Jury debates the award as a picture of Washington emerges

We read through the Ft Washington physician's $10,200 invoice line-by-line. Some jurors were comfortable ordering Metro to pay for all of his costs except for the last 6 visits to his office. That added up to about $8,500. Others were opposed to any such sum.

One juror in opposition argued that it was a minor incident, and it was completely unfair for taxpayers to have to pay $8,500 for a scrape of some car paint.

I argued to the jurors in opposition that that's precisely why motor vehicle transportation is so dangerous—it's unforgiving to the slightest infraction. You can glance at your phone while driving and cause multiple fatalities.

Another juror who opposed any award in the several thousands of dollars argued that we should consider what society owes Ms. Lee, and that in his judgment society owes her little. You can't quantify pain, and anyway she has been in pain for years for which society was already doing a lot.

I challenged the jurors in opposition to remember the question that we had all been asked by Ms. Lee's attorney before the trial: could we set our personal views on tort reform aside and decide on a verdict based on the judge's instructions? We had all answered yes to this question.

Our job was to assign objective values to these things, not to decide what society owed Ms. Lee or to send a statement to the judicial system with a small award.

Another juror said in frustration that he had always paid for his medical costs through college to this day, and taxpayers shouldn't have to pay Ms. Lee's medical costs.

Ultimately, the only figure we could agree on was $8,500 for her medical costs. I could have supported a larger award, as it made little sense to me to find medical costs reasonable but assign no value to the pain for which those medical costs were incurred.

Others were clearly unwilling to award a penny more, and I agreed that quantifying pain and suffering would be difficult. Ms. Lee's attorney had asked her no questions about her suffering and the consequences of the pain for her life, so we had little actual evidence on which to base an award for suffering or inconvenience.

Did the jurors' backgrounds inform their views?

The jury consisted of 5 white men, 2 black women and 1 white woman. The 2 black jurors spoke very little. 95% of the deliberations happened among the 6 white jurors.

It was clear that some jurors viewed Ms. Lee through a lens stereotyping much of Washington, an African-American in Southeast DC pulling every string in the system for her personal benefit while contributing little.

During the trial, though, a very different picture appeared to me. Ms. Lee dropped out of school in 11th grade, and still managed to become trained as a Certified Nursing Assistant and Home Health Aide. She worked in both professions until the age of 34, when the catastrophic crash in 1990 resulted in screws and rods in her neck.

She lived a quiet life for the next 20 years, in near-constant pain. She is on daily narcotics to this day to manage her pain, which she places at a 9 on a scale of 1-10. If not for her personal injury attorney, I'm confident that Ms. Lee would have filed no case against WMATA.

When you imagine walking in the shoes of someone like Ms. Lee, you realize that one man's ambulance chaser is another man's right to counsel. One man's medical expert for hire is another man's right to get a second opinion.

A jury, randomly selected from DC residents, and its deliberations provide a snapshot of how our city is changing, and how we solve bigger problems.

Sometimes I fear that the Washington that we are becoming has little interest to walk in the shoes of others, or even imagine what it would be like to do so. As DC grows, I hear too many who see our growth as a rejection of our past and of the people who built DC in the decades since Home Rule. We don't see ourselves as one city.

It was hard, on this jury, not to imagine how the jury deliberations would have been different 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Can we grow and evolve as a city, and still see other residents as "in this together" with us?

Streetcars can be longer

In simplest terms, streetcars can be longer than buses. Since streetcars run on tracks, there is no danger of jackknifing. Likewise, since streetcars are powered by overhead wire, there's not a single engine distributing power. Thus there's no physical limit to their length.

For example, streetcar manufacturer CAF offers its Urbos model in options ranging from 60 feet long up to 141 feet long. Bombardier's similar Flexity model comes in any length from 69 feet up to 148 feet.

Portland's famous streetcar is a relatively diminutive 65 feet long, but longer vehicles are beginning to show up in North America. Cincinnati is using a 77 foot long Urbos for its future line, and the first 78 foot long Siemens S70s have already been delivered to Atlanta. In Toronto, 99 foot long Flexities will soon ply the continent's largest streetcar network.

And that's just single streetcar vehicles. Streetcars can also be coupled into trains of multiple cars, so transit agencies that own shorter vehicles can still get the benefits of extra length without needing new railcars.

Agencies that want to run longer trains do have to provide longer stations, but since streetcar stations are typically simple, that's relatively easy to accomplish.

Ultimately the limiting factor on streetcar length is the size of city blocks. Streetcars can't typically be longer than one city block, lest they block traffic on perpendicular streets. But city blocks are usually hundreds of feet long, so streetcars can still be much longer than buses.

Streetcars can have diverse interiors

Even compared to buses of exactly the same length, streetcars can support a higher passenger capacity. Since gliding along rails is so much more smooth than rumbling along asphalt, and since there's no need for huge wheel wells, it's more practical for streetcars to have a lot of open space that maximizes standing capacity.

The 3 streetcars that DC has in storage use this strategy. They're 65 feet long, but they have much more capacity than a 60 foot long articulated bus because of the open floor plan. The trade off, of course, is that they have fewer seats, but only streetcars practically offer the choice.

What kind of flexibility is more important?

Faced with the choice of operational flexibility or capacity flexibility, which one rules?

It depends on the needs of the corridor and the goals of the transit line. Sometimes buses are the correct answer, and other times it's streetcars.

Sometimes it might make sense to use both on the same corridor. For example, streetcars capable of providing very high capacity might serve most passengers along a line, while buses capable of skipping around traffic might serve longer express trips on the same road.

There are 157 WMATA bus routes in the District of Columbia alone, with hundreds more WMATA and non-WMATA routes around the region. The majority of them are probably better served with buses, but some of them are undoubtedly better fits for streetcars.

The key for decision makers is to embrace the differences inherent to each mode, and decide accordingly.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Bus cameras in San Francisco will not be used to ticket other types of moving violations such as speeding or running red lights. For now they won't even be used to ticket car drivers that block bus stops. Current law prohibits any use other than ticketing transit lane violations.

Even that limited application will make a big difference, though. San Francisco has 17 miles of transit lanes, but without enforcement they're no better at actually moving buses through traffic than 7th Street in DC.

If this idea works it could have a huge effect on bus planning nationwide. Bus lanes could become much more effective, and therefore likely to become more widespread.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

The pro-streetcar group, Arlington Streetcar Now, wants to see the proposed streetcar become a reality on Columbia Pike between Pentagon City and Bailey's Crossroads in Fairfax County (and potentially beyond), as well as a future streetcar from Pentagon City to Crystal City and then Potomac Yard in Alexandria.

It counters another new group, Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit, which launched in January. Its supporters say they want Arlington to study a "modern Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system" along the Pike. But that group's platform is deeply misleading.

Prominently plastered across its home page is a concept sketch of such a "modern BRT" system from Eugene, Oregon, which runs in a dedicated lane. But transit on Columbia Pike won't get a dedicated lane. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) won't allow it. That's a travesty, but Arlington has been trying to make the best of the situation with the streetcar design.

You can build a very high-quality bus transit system, with a dedicated paved transitway, enclosed and sheltered stations, off-board fare payment, real-time information, and more. You can also build a cheap bus line that's scarcely better than a classic bus.

A number of true BRT advocates really want to see "gold standard" bus-based transit lines, like those that have been very successful in Latin America. But in the United States, this often gets drowned out by people who just want to see cheaper projects, even if they're less effective. We see campaigns with pictures of fancy, gold standard BRT paired with cost estimates more in line with not-really-BRT. It's snake oil.

AST claims a "BRT" system would be far cheaper than a streetcar, but they are using estimates for alternatives in earlier studies that aren't really BRT at all. Building something like the Eugene transitway would cost far more, perhaps more even than the streetcar.

Stop using "BRT" to talk about not-really-BRT

Streetcar isn't always the right mode. Nor is rail in general. In many of the corridors where Montgomery County is considering BRT, assuming the county executive goes along with planners' recommendations to repurpose existing lanes for BRT, this can be the right form of transit. It's probably even right for the Corridor Cities Transitway.

But in Arlington, since a dedicated lane is not even on the table, it's disingenuous from the start to use the term "BRT." The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), the leading group of genuine BRT supporters, calls dedicated lanes a "vital" part of any BRT system in a BRT rating system they devised. Like LEED, ITDP's system gives points for different elements; systems with a certain number of points are "gold," then "silver" and "bronze."

ITDP's system tries to help define what really is "BRT" and what is just an overhyped regular bus line, and to differentiate higher-quality BRT lines from ones that have made more compromises. The US has not yet built a single gold-standard BRT system, or even silver, and most projects dubbed "BRT" aren't at all.

Arlington has already studied not-really-BRT and chose streetcar

On its website, AST doesn't claim any particular cost savings or push any specific plan, but just asks for "a study." The problem is, Arlington has done 2 studies already. Both looked at bus alternatives.

A 2005 study considered what it called a "BRT" option, with frequent, new buses, special stations, some off-board payment, but ultimately just a bus running in mixed traffic.

I went through the ITDP rating system and tried to match each category to the description in that study. Assuming the most optimistic choice each time, this would yield a score of about 61, or just barely enough to rate as Bronze BRT. Compromise on even the tiniest element, like only some off-board payment or lower off-peak frequency, and that proposal wouldn't qualify as BRT at all.

The 2012 Alternatives Analysis considered an articulated bus option. Streetcar supporters Mary Hynes and Walter Tejada told the Arlington Mercury the capacity of articulated buses is just not high enough compared to streetcar.

Arlington Streetcar Now also cites studies showing that many riders will take a streetcar over a bus. They say Tacoma saw a bus line's ridership jump 500% when it transformed it into a streetcar. 59% of residents along Columbia Pike said they would use a streetcar, while only 36% use the bus today.

It might be that those respondents think the streetcar will be faster than in reality, but other cities' experiences have been that ridership on new streetcar lines outstrips predictions while bus ridership does not.

Argue facts, not fiction

There are surely valid arguments for a bus project over a streetcar, just as no transportation choice is ever unequivocal, but there are many arguments for the streetcar over buses as well. What isn't on the table, however, is "modern BRT." Should Arlington not build the streetcar because it could just use a Star Trek transporter instead?

There's nothing wrong with a group advocating for a different transportation choice, though we might disagree; it's disingenuous, though, to promote an impossible and expensive nice-looking option and assert it's cheaper. Can the case against the streetcar really be strong, if opponents need to dangle a completely unrealistic hypothetical in front of residents?

Arlingtonians who want to see the streetcar built can declare their support and get on the email list for Arlington Streetcar Now.

25 residents packed a daycare room at the Jewish Community Center on a cold and rainy night last Monday evening and shared not only their frustrations, but also their thoughtful ideas. Express and Current reporters also were there. Dozens of residents who could not attend emailed me their concerns and ideas, which I shared with WMATA officials.

For example, rider Mary M. wrote,

Just this week (Tues, Wed, and today, Thurs), it has taken me 45-50 minutes to get from 16th & V to 14th & I, and anywhere from 4 to 6 buses have passed the stop each morning because they are too crowded to accept any more passengers. (Also, on Tuesday morning, 2 buses that had hardly anyone standing passed us by in the cold). There are usually 15-20 people waiting at V St in the mornings.

At the meeting, S bus riders heard from WMATA bus planners Jim Hamre and David Erion and DDOT's Steve Strauss. All 3 have a wealth of experience with District bus service. They have worked to make improvements in the past, like the S9 express bus. Rapid population growth in central DC has created challenges for bus service to keep up, they said.

But they offered hope of addressing this problem without affecting service for those who live along the northern half of the route. On Friday, in a follow-up phone call, Hamre also told me that WMATA is working on new proposals which he can discuss with the community around the 3rd week of February.

New route could serve half of 16th, if there's a space to lay over

One possibility discussed with Hamre during the meeting is a rush hour route focused on the morning problem strip: Columbia Road to downtown DC. But one obstacle is layover space—a bus route requires a location for the bus drivers to park, pause, and get ready for an on-time departure. My ANC colleague Noah Smith proposed inquiring about space in nearby neighborhoods.

We asked whether the route could run for only the 8-9 am hour, and therefore perhaps avoid the need for the parking stop. But the availability of a layover space is a very important part of running a bus route, the planners said. Would the elusive search for bus-length parking in one of the most congested parts of town stall this idea?

After the meeting, my wife Divya, who often jogs to Rock Creek and back, suggested asking about using the existing turnaround area on Calvert Street, by the Duke Ellington Bridge, where the 90s bus lines end today. That is less than 5 blocks from Columbia Road, and then just another 5 blocks from the 16th & Columbia intersection.

Hamre was intrigued by the idea when we discussed it by phone. While it's not ideal, he said he'd look into it, among other possibilities. (None of those possibilities include reducing service to the northern half of the S route).

Other ideas that came up at the meeting include posting bus supervisors along the current S line to efficiently reorder buses en route, and consolidating certain stops that are very close together (at least during rush hour) along 16th Street.

We are looking forward to seeing WMATA's proposals later this month. As soon as the meeting is confirmed, we will share it here and elsewhere to hopefully get an even bigger turnout than the one we had last Monday. Thanks go to the Jewish Community Center for providing the space, WMATA and DDOT officials for attending, and Noah Smith, who collaborated with me to organize the event.

16th Street buses in Dupont: WMATA bus planner Jim Hamre will meet with residents about the performance of the S line, where many riders have to endure long waits during rush hour. That's not because the buses take a long time to come, but rather, full bus after full bus pass them by on this extremely popular line.

New Dupont ANC commissioner Kishan Putta organized the meeting, tonight (Monday), 7:30 pm at the JCC, 16th and Q (enter on Q Street). Residents are free to bring up concerns about other bus lines as well.

Sidewalk on Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda: Maryland SHA wants to build a 6-foot sidewalk on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue between Friendship Heights and Bethesda. The Little Falls Watershed Alliance is opposing the sidewalk because it will require cutting down trees, but WABA wants to ensure there's a safe route for pedestrians and cyclists on this road.

There's a public meeting tonight (Monday), 7:30-9 pm at Somerset Town Hall, 4510 Cumberland Avenue, Chevy Chase, where SHA will present plans and hear from residents.

Friends of White Flint happy hour: On Tuesday, Friends of White Flint and the Coalition for Smarter Growth are having a happy hour to talk about how to make the suburbs "hip," or much more than "hip."

The happy hour starts at 5:30pm at Seasons 52, 11414 Rockville Pike, a short walk from the White Flint Metro station. Councilmembers Hans Riemer and Roger Berliner will be there; RSVP here.

Potomac Ave "circle": DDOT has been studying ways to improve the intersection of Pennsylvania and Potomac Avenues, at the Potomac Avenue Metro. A previous study recommended a sort of square with 5-lane roadways around the edge; at this meeting, DDOT will present its new ideas, which it hasn't yet released, and hear from residents.

The meeting is Thursday, January 31, 6:30-8:30pm at Payne Elementary, 1445 C Street, SE.

Does redevelopment mean gentrification? River East Emerging Leaders (r.e.e.l.) is convening a panel discussion on the positive and negative effects of redevelopment, and lessons learned for the future.

The panel will include NBC's Tom Sherwood, planning head Harriet Tregoning, Clinton Yates of the Washington Post, and a number of other community and city leaders. It's Thursday, January 31, 7 pm at the DHCD Community Room, 1800 Martin Luther King Avenue, SE in Anacostia. RSVP at info@reeldc.org.

Frederick Douglass's Anacostia: Greater Greater Washington contributor John Muller, who recently wrote a book about Frederick Douglass and his years in Anacostia, is giving a tour Saturday of the places Douglass frequented, including majestic views of the Capitol, and historical explanations of Douglass's life. The tour runs from 1-2:30 pm and costs $30.

MoveDC Idea Exchange: And don't forget, Saturday, February 9th is the big "Idea Exchange" for DDOT's moveDC citywide transportation plan. You can stop by the MLK Library for fun and even family-friendly interactive transportation booths anytime from 9:30-3.

An organized program begins at 10:30, including a panel discussion at 11 featuring PolicyLink's Anita Hairston, author Chris Leinberger, and Slate blogger Matthew Yglesias.

Have an event for the calendar? Post it in the comments or email it to events@ggwash.org.

According to ITDP, the best performing BRT systems in the world are Bogota, Colombia and Guangzhou, China, which score 93/100 and 89/100, respectively. They are the gold standard.

By comparison, the United States' highest-scoring BRT route is Cleveland's Health Line, which hits bronze with a score of 63. The other 4 bronze BRT lines in there US are in Eugene, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Las Vegas.

Boston's famous Silver Line, which even runs in a subway for a short stretch, scores a meager 37. That's not enough to qualify as true BRT at all, even a low level.

It isn't that gold standard BRT is impossible in the United States. Certainly it's possible. But it isn't built here because nobody really wants to build it.

The same community leaders who choose BRT over rail, because BRT is cheaper, then make the same choice when faced with other potential cost-cutting measures. They eliminate the most expensive features, until the gold standard that was promised isn't actually what's delivered.

That sort of feature cutting is called BRT creep, and so far it's happened to some extent on every major BRT project in American history.

None of this should suggest that BRT is worthless. Sometimes BRT creep can even be beneficial, if it makes an otherwise infeasible project possible. Bronze level BRT is still rapid transit, after all, and even bus priority routes that don't fully qualify as actual BRT are often a huge improvement over regular busing.

WMATA's MetroExtra service, for example, isn't usually called BRT even by low American standards, but it's still a great service. It was something Metro could do quickly and cheaply to help riders, and it works.

But beware the politician who argues for gold standard BRT over rail. Odds are they won't deliver.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.