|
|
| WMATA Observations (1345106) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
WMATA Observations |
|
|
Posted by italianstallion on Tue Mar 24 17:37:43 2015 Just back from 4 days in DC where we rode the Red and Green lines a bit. I've been there before, but this time I paid more attention and numerous features and idiosyncrasies of WMATA caught my eye, though I'm sure few of these are news to many on this board.1. The trains seem to accelerate much faster than those in NYC. They have a real nice pickup. 2. The conductor announcements are just as unintelligible as those in NY. 3. The newer cars have digital signs inside, but all they say is the line name -- RED, GREEN, etc. Can they be programmed to show station names? Ditto, the front digital signs only say the line color. 4. The chimes for the closing doors are nicer (less-jarring) than in NY. (But so are the people!) 5. On weekends on the Red Line, it seemed that trains randomly had either 6 or 8 cars. Now the digital arrival signs tell you how many cars are arriving, but it seems silly not to have some uniform system. At one of the major downtown transfer stations, a 6-car train stopped at the far front end of the platform. Problem was, the transfer escalators were at the back end, where dozens of transferring pax were waiting. This resulted in a mad dash to stuff into the last few cars of the train with resultant delay. Why couldn't the train stop further back nearer the escalators? 6. The concrete barrel-vaulted stations are very boring and ugly. The lighting is shadowy. There is no particular need for such a high vault except to leave space for the mezzanines at each end, but they could be accommodated in other ways. 7. Many stations seem to be extremely deep-bore. Is there that much infrastructure under DC's streets that necessitated such deep stations? 8. Deep stations require extremely long escalators, but they are extremely slow. 9. I don't like the typical entrance-exit setup from the mezzanines to the platforms. At each end, or sometimes only at one end, there is one narrow escalator down to the platform, and another one going up. I can imagine that when a packed rush-hour train empties out at, say, Dupont Circle, there is quite a jam-up getting up that sole escalator. 10. Also, after you enter fare control, it's not abundantly clear which escalator goes up and which goes down. Tourists were constantly heading for the wrong one, but since the up and down ones are always in the same relative position, you catch on quickly. 11. The digital train arrival signs are accurate, but there is only one on each platform, so if you are far from it, it's very hard to see. 12. I hate the zone fare system. Regulars have fare passes, so they don't care, but occasional users require 6 steps to buy a fare card: find their destination station on a list, see the fares, determine if it's peak or off-peak time, calculate the round-trip total, pay, and take their fare card. Then you need to insert it into the turnstile on entering and exiting for each leg of your journey. If you add wrong, you have to pay an "exit fare" to get out. What happens if you have no more money? Are you stuck like Charlie on the MTA? Enough! All in all it's a nice system. It has good coverage and frequent service. It seemed mainly on time, though I did not ride in peak service. |
|
|
|