The Daily Feed, WMATA

Get Ready for Lots of Track Work

Photo courtesy of
‘”Delays Continue.” on WMATA (U Street)’
courtesy of ‘technotheory’

Prepare yourselves for lots of waiting around this weekend if you’re taking Metro, no matter where you’re headed. WMATA tells us that there will be track work on ALL LINES this weekend. Fabulous.

On the Red Line (as if you weren’t already used to delays), there will be delays between Medical Center and Friendship Heights while some tracks are repaired. On Saturday and Sunday, every other train will terminate at Friendship Heights and turn around towards Glenmont, and trains will operate every 20 minutes between Shady Grove and Medical Center. Give yourself an additional 30 minutes.

On the Blue and Orange Lines, bridge maintenance will cause delays between Eastern Market and Stadium-Armory because trains will be sharing one track. Give yourself an additional 30 minutes.

On the Green and Yellow Lines, rail replacement will cause delays between Georgia Avenue and U Street stations because trains will be sharing one track. Give yourself an additional 30 minutes.

And finally, on the Blue and Yellow Lines, track maintenance will cause delays between Braddock Road and Van Dorn Street and Huntington stations because trains will be sharing one track. The Blue Line in particular will be operating only at certain stations, so part at Huntington if you want to avoid delays. Give yourself at least an additional 30 minutes to get where you’re going.

This might be a good weekend to take the bus instead.  Check out the bus map for routes, and find out when the next bus is coming to your stop via iPhone app, internet, or phone.  The Circulator has bus tracking, too!

The Daily Feed, WMATA

Rough Morning Commute Today

Photo courtesy of
‘Typical Beltway traffic’
courtesy of ‘brianmka’

What a mess– two incidents are making for some long commutes this morning.  First, around 5 AM this morning (thanks for the wake-up text message alert at 7 AM, Washington Post), an accident at the 3rd Street Tunnel entrance caused some major delays.  And I mean major– according to WTOP, traffic is backed up for 24 miles (!) along 95 and 395.

In a separate incident, service on the Camden Line of the MARC commuter rail in Maryland has been suspended after a train hit a pedestrian.  Police are investigating.  In the mean time, Metro will honor MARC tickets from Greenbelt, and MTA is providing bus service from Dorsey, Savage, and Laurel stations to Greenbelt.

Did you get stuck in any of this today?  Let us know in the comments.