By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; A01
So many light bulbs, so little light. Metrorail stations have 73,836 lights designed to produce a soft glow, the better to show off the stations' vaulted arches. But riders grumble that stations are too dark to read newspapers or even make out an escalator step.
Metro says it is listening: Poor lighting is its top maintenance concern. It is also a pet peeve of Metro's interim general manager, Dan Tangherlini.
"It looks like we're not really on top of our ballgame when you walk into a station and see light bulbs out," he said.
Thus illuminated, Metro officials plan to announce today steps to brighten the stations, 47 of which are underground.
Some steps are short-term: Metro will promise to replace burned-out bulbs within 10 days instead of three months. Brighter bulbs will top the platform pylons, the tall rectangular columns that display the station name and stops. And crews will do a total replacement and inspection of station lights every 10 months instead of annually.
Longer term, Tangherlini said, Metro needs to ask the bigger questions: "What kind of lighting do we want in the station, and how can we improve lighting while maintaining the architectural integrity and beauty?"
In July, the transit agency plans to begin a six-month study of those questions. The $200,000 study will seek input from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and Metro's recently formed Riders' Advisory Council.
The lighting is complicated. When Metro opened 30 years ago, designers wanted to highlight the cathedral-like arches of the underground stations with soft, indirect light. Eight-foot-long fluorescent tubes run down the track bed, illuminating the concrete walls. Each track bed has 150 tubes, or 300 per small station, with one set of tracks.
Embedded in the granite platform edges are the 40-watt incandescent bulbs that blink as trains approach. Each edge has 144 bulbs, a total 288 for small stations.
But changing a light bulb is not easy. Many of the lights are impossible to reach from the platform. In fact, Metro has to stop the trains to screw in a bulb.
"Somebody can't just come out here during the day to do this," said Hector Ramirez, 42, supervisor of the light crews, whose members are all electricians known as relampers. Ramirez estimated that he has personally changed at least 3,000 bulbs.
As a result, most relamping has to be done when trains aren't running, typically between 1:30 and 4 a.m. weekdays. It might sound easy, but it takes 13 workers -- and this is no joke -- working two shifts to change all the lights in a small station. It can take them seven shifts to finish screwing in all the bulbs and tubes at larger stations, such as Metro Center, that have more than one level.
Given the time and labor involved, Metro officials are entertaining some bright ideas.
Better bulbs are one option. Metro could replace all 25,920 platform lights -- the ones that flash -- with special light-emitting diode bulbs. LED bulbs give the same amount of light but use one-third the energy and last 20 times as long as regular ones. But they also cost more. A lot more. As much as 70 times more.
The regular bulbs cost about $1.50 apiece and last three months. The off-the-shelf price for the higher-tech ones is $108 each, although they last five years, according to David Knights, a top manager in charge of rail systems maintenance.
The Rosslyn Metro station has the newer lights, and Metro would like to use them in all 86 stations. Officials are soliciting proposals from vendors with the expectation that bulk buying would produce deep discounts. "For 26,000 bulbs, there might be a different price," Tangherlini said.
Even if the bulbs ended up costing more, Tangherlini said Metro could break even or save in other ways because people who are "running around changing light bulbs" would be free to do other jobs.
It costs Metro about $7 million a year in electricity to light stations. The agency has 18 relampers and 116 other workers who spend half their time working on lights. The annual cost for labor and lighting materials for the whole system, which includes bus and parking garages and rail yards, comes to nearly $4.5 million.
The short-term lighting fixes, budgeted for $390,000 in the fiscal year beginning in July, are underway. Lights have been replaced at 32 stations. The remaining 54 should be brightened by the end of October.
The better lighting has benefits for Metro employees as well as riders. It will help operators of eight-car trains, who need to look down the platform to see passengers getting on and off the last car. Transit police will have clearer images on security cameras.
Some cheap fixes have produced immediate results. At nine stations, the track bed tubes had protective covers that over the years became coated in dirt, especially from brake shoe dust. Workers removed the covers, and lo and behold, the stations came aglow with light.
"I want you to feel comfortable and safe in my Metro station," said Ramirez, the head relamper.
At Columbia Heights Station, the covers are off on one side of the track bed lights but not the other.
Audrey Wabash, 51, a food service worker, did not notice that half the station was brighter than the other when she waited for her train one day last week. But when the difference was pointed out, her eyes widened in surprise.
"The brighter side makes it look like the station is open," she said, looking from one side of the platform to the other. "The other side looks like the station is closed." She was more comfortable with the brighter side, she said. It made her feel safer.
