WASHINGTON — With the aftertaste of a rough morning commute still fresh in the minds of some Virginia commuters, reality may be setting in as workers head home from work on Tuesday.
There were no reports of major Metro incidents heading into the Tuesday evening commute, as the second weekday of unprecedented track work initiative plods ahead. Known as the SafeTrack surge, Metro is rolling out waves of massive service reductions throughout the year in order to improve the rail system’s safety. The initiative follows last year’s deadly smoke incident at L’Enfant Plaza and federal pressure to overhaul the aging system.
Even though trains and station platforms were more crowded and travel times took longer for some, Metrorail ridership at stations west of Ballston was down 27 percent Tuesday morning compared with the same time three weeks ago, according to a tweet from WMATA.
Here is AM ridership info for today (Tuesday) at stations west of Ballston #SafeTrack #wmata pic.twitter.com/O6R9SBV8mg
— Metro (@wmata) June 7, 2016
But that doesn’t mean the evening commute was free of frustration. While there may have been fewer riders on the rails, there seemed to be more drivers on the roads in the District, where WTOP listeners complained of major backups.
@wtop have then it for 90 minutes trying to get from Capitol Hill to Virginia. Have only made it to Connecticut. — Lisa Dry (@bootheelgirl) June 7, 2016
.@wmata #SafeTrack traffic backups start in the parking garage. 1 block in 40 min up 20th St NW. @WTOP pic.twitter.com/5ZKBsOPmrL
— Scott Overland (@ScottOverland) June 7, 2016
The District had planned to hire 20 traffic control officers by the end of the month to help manage extra traffic at busy intersections, but on Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the District needed more time to add the officers, NBC Washington reports.
Bus shuttles in some places were meant to ease some of the traffic burden along the impacted rail routes. But at the Orange Line’s Ballston station in Virginia, free shuttle busses were late to arrive. A line of afternoon commuters had begun to form.
Adding to the frustration was the apparent mix-up in communication.
One rider tells WTOP that he had arrived at the station at around 3:30 p.m. expecting to hop on one of the free shuttle busses, based on what he said Metro staff told him. But there were no shuttles when he got there. The bus didn’t arrive until around 4:15 p.m. and the next one didn’t get there until just after 4:20 p.m.
Under this first wave of SafeTrack, trains on the Orange and Silver line routes between Ballston and East Falls Church will share be sharing a single track, which means crowded train cars and longer wait times even during the rail system’s busiest hours — the morning and afternoon commutes.
This initial phase continues through Thursday, June 16 and is only the beginning of intermittent major service disruptions spread across Metrorail lines through March 2017.
The next leg of track work begins June 18, when the segment of the Blue, Orange and Silver lines from Eastern Market to Minnesota Avenue/Benning Road will be shut down.
WTOP’s Michelle Basch contributed to this report from Ballston.
