After a fire broke out in a tunnel near McPherson Square on Monday and snarled service on three lines, Metro advised riders to consider alternative modes of transportation.
Silver Line service Monday ran only between the Wiehle-Reston East and Ballston stations. Single-tracking in the system’s central core meant crowded platforms and severe delays downtown.
Uber says its demand was noticeably heightened at the Clarendon, Courthouse, Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom Metro stations, according to company spokeswoman Kaitlin Durkosh. The company declined, however, to provide exact ridership figures for Monday.
During the morning, nearly 20 percent of Uber trips in the region were taken by first-time users of UberPool, the app’s lower-cost ride-sharing service, the company said — an unusually high proportion that indicated riders were probably seeking a cheap alternative to Metro.
There was a downside to all the demand: surge-pricing. Riders reported price multipliers up to nearly five times the normal fare.
Uber, for its part, says surge pricing is an effort to guarantee that a ride is available on a day like Monday.
“Our goal at Uber is to ensure you can push a button and always get a ride within minutes,” Durkosh said. “By using surge, we ensure that anyone who needs a ride can get one in minutes especially when there are limited options beyond Uber available.”
Durkosh said the average hourly surge never surpassed 2.6 times the normal fare Monday morning in the areas immediately surrounding Silver, Orange and Blue Line stations. At that multiplier, a ride between the Courthouse and Foggy Bottom Metro Stations might cost anywhere from $15 to $19, which is similar to the cost of cab fare, according to TaxiFareFinder.com.
For passengers wary of racking up a huge bill, Durkosh says riders are required to manually accept the fare increase by typing in the fare multiplier for a surge-priced ride above 2x. She pointed out that riders could also use a fare estimator included in the app.
(Washington Post owner Jeffrey P. Bezos is an investor in Uber.)
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