By Robert Thomson
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Looking at our transit system's uncertain future, it helps to discuss how we got this far.
Dear Dr. Gridlock:
One contributor [Dr. Gridlock, July 6] noted correctly that Metro has cultivated the notion that it is different from other subway systems, more like a commuter railroad than a subway.
This notion, mass transportation without the masses, was always doomed to fail. Either the special ambiance would persist and the system would serve so few people it would gain little public support, or the system would attract significant ridership and would have to discard its pretense of exclusivity.
That Metro was designed to be different, to correct the alleged failures of other subways, notably New York's, accounts for many of Metro's flaws in station design, in track layout, in rolling stock design and so on.
Instead of learning from others' experiences, Metro's designers set out to do something different, often with unfortunate consequences. See, for example, the choice of escalators when stairs would have done at least as well.
Of course, the decision to design unique rolling stock rather than use a proven prototype, perhaps the San Francisco transit system cars, was, and remains, an expensive folly.
Sadly, Metro's management failed to grasp a lesson from systems in places such as New York. In the 1950s and 1960s, the New York system lived off past investments, allowing its infrastructure to deteriorate and failing to build capacity to match the growth of its region. Unfortunately, Metro made the same mistake.
You added a comment that Metro's technology might not be adequate for the future. You need to understand that effective electric train technology has existed for more than a century. Improving transit depends on expanding capacity by using existing technology. The only technological change that might be relevant to Metro is different signaling to allow shorter headways [the difference in distance between trains].
Metro would be better advised to simplify its technology and borrow more from older, better-established systems. And, rather than spending money on improved signaling, it would be better off building another Potomac River crossing.
James P. Hubbard
Reston
People jammed aboard 35-year-old rail cars Monday morning won't be thinking of this, but Metro was a breakthrough. It was one of the first rail systems built after World War II to challenge car commuting, and it more than held its own, as the crowding implies.
To compete, planners thought, Metrorail had to offer more amenities than the transit systems built at the dawn of the auto age. The rail car style, with cushions and carpets, was part of that. But there were other ways the Metro planners had to deal with late-20th century transit realities.
The first, troubled cars for Metrorail and San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit were built by Rohr Industries, an aerospace company looking for new markets just as the U.S. transit industry was restarting.
Zachary M. Schrag, author of "The Great Society Subway," a fascinating history of Metrorail, says that the BART cars were somewhat experimental and that the system "would not have been a good path for Metro to follow." BART's wider tracks and cars drove up costs and would have been difficult for Metro to adopt given the big portion of the Washington system that runs in tunnels.
One element of Metro's mass appeal: the center door. BART cars have two sets of doors on each side, and Metro cars were designed with three to get commuters in and out more quickly.
Planners should be aware of the system's history when they consider changing designs, Schrag says. He sees art as well as science in the subway: "One of the things that makes Metro Metro is the power given to the original designers."
He's not crazy about the transit authority's process for picking red platform lights to replace the original white lights. But as Hubbard says, capital investment is crucial.
To increase capacity, Schrag suggests, we should first go after the low-hanging fruit. That includes tunnels to link Farragut North with Farragut West and Metro Center with Gallery Place. The links would ease crowding downtown.
"But there's only so much low-hanging fruit," he says.
We should be thinking about additional river crossings, Schrag says, and fixing the "great catastrophe" in the system's original design: failure to send Metrorail to Tysons.
Dr. Gridlock appears Thursday in the Extras and Sunday in the Metro section. You can send e-mails todrgridlock@washpost.com. Include your name, home community and phone numbers. Some letters are published.
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