Metro’s online trip planner impacted by extreme cold

Frigid temperatures across the region have made planning a Christmas Day Metro trip — or just getting to work — more challenging than usual.

In a statement Sunday morning, Metro announced that the extreme cold caused pipes to burst in a data center housed at Metro’s previous headquarters.

As a result, Metro says “trip planning data may experience intermitted outages, incorrect data” for the system’s bus and rail arrival information.



“To address standing water and mitigate damage in the building, a partial shutdown of power was required,” the agency said. “While network redundancies are in place, Metro will conduct ongoing data migration to avoid damage to systems which may impact customer-facing trip planning applications.”

While Metro says its busETA planning application is “back online,” some data on websites or third-party applications may not be accurate. Allow yourself extra travel time just in case there is an issue.

Ivy Lyons

Ivy Lyons is a digital journalist for WTOP.com. Since 2018, they have worked on Capitol Hill, at NBC News in Washington, and with WJLA in Washington.

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