Episode 001 of the FixWMATA Podcast was recorded in November, 2017 and features news, rider interviews, and an interview with @UNSUCKDCMETRO.

 

 

 
Link to Ian Sutherland's Music:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/ian_sutherland

Text of this episode:

I’m Chris Barnes and this… is the FixWMATA Podcast

This week we take a quick look back at the news - then we talk with riders outside Metro Center - and finally, you won’t want to miss my interview with UNSUCKDCMETRO….

In WMATA news this week…

WAMU reporter Martin Di Caro asked why ride-share partnerships that are working elsewhere aren’t happening for WMATA and also has a story about how WMATA is making cosmetic changes to 500 rail cars to make them look like new rail cars…

Stephen Repetski has a story in Greater Greater Washington about a track worker who was sent to the hospital after coming in contact with electricity. The take-away from this story is WMATA’s response which says the employee was NOT electrocuted but “sustained an electrical injury”. Quite a conversation about what exactly constitutes being “electrocuted” followed on Twitter. Stephen also points out a continuing problem with track workers and electricity - this is the 3rd incident in 2017 alone.

Max Smith with WTOP has a couple of articles about the ongoing feud for funding at WMATA. This week DC Councilmember and WMATA Board Chair Jack Evans passed an act that would raise DC sales taxes to fund the system - an act that only takes effect if Maryland and Virginia do the same - a long shot by most estimates. Meanwhile, failing to come up with a plan to fund WMATA the Metro Washington Council of Governments’ Metro Strategy Group has shifted towards a last-ditch effort to fund WMATA for a year while they continue to work on a long term solution.

Progressive Railroading has a great article about WMATA’s public outreach for upcoming Metro station changes to accommodate the Purple Line in Maryland.

And Kathleen Stubbs with The Sentinel has an update on the ongoing efforts to stop water leaks on the Red Line - a pilot program is continuing to cause off-hour delays between Medical Center and Grosvenor.

Finally - Max Smith with WTOP has a great guide to getting around WMATA’s upcoming closure on the eastern end of the Red Line. Takoma station will be closed November 25th through December 10th and there will be no rail service between Silver Spring and Fort Totten.

All of these stories and more can be found on FixWMATA dot com where new stories are added throughout the week.

[segment 1 introduction music]

I spent some time this Saturday outside Metro Center talking with riders - asking them the core question: “What’s wrong with Metro and how do we fix WMATA”. Here’s what they had to say…

[Eric] My name is Eric and my home station is Bennett Road Station.

[FixWMATA] OK, cool. What’s wrong with Metro and how do we fix WMATA?

[Eric] What I think is wrong with Metro is like they’re inconvenient to people’s schedules, like when they do the little trains, fixing the trains and stuff they’ll stop like in the middle of a station and be right there for like hours - or not even hours let me not exaggerate it like for a good like 30 minutes at least. Or 15 minutes. That’s what I think is wrong with it. And then it’s the buses - what I think is wrong with the buses is it don’t be enough frequency and security, like Transit mostly.

[FixWMATA] Do you ride the X2 at all?

[Eric] I used to but I stopped because of the things that happened on the X2. So, yeah.