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| Photo by Eric T. Gunther via Wikimedia Commons |
by Peggy Robin
The Washington Post has done an admirable job of keeping us
informed about the ongoing series of Metro accidents and maintenance mishaps
over the past few weeks, with dramatic, up-to-the-minute stories and videos
online – like this one: http://wapo.st/1TtuD9i
And they’ve also done the tougher, plodding part, too, dredging over the history to put together an account of how Metro managed to descend into
its present sorry state:
And then there’s Alexandra Petri, the one writer at the Post
who has proven herself capable of capturing the surreal absurdity of the
situation. You don’t expect this sort of thing from a columnist at a big daily
paper, but in this piece, she’s got the horror-show/black comedy combination down just right: http://wapo.st/1ZoWg84
Still, for ongoing real-time accounts of the disaster
beneath our streets, nothing right now beats the continual stream of reports
from riders themselves on “Unsuck DC Metro.” The Tweets and Facebook posts
should be required bedtime reading for all Metro managers – and if the material
keeps them up all night, so much the better! Here’s a fair sampling of the
Tweets of the past few days. [A few typos have been corrected for improved
readability.]
Smell of burning rubber, smoke and
conductor RUNNING off of the RL train at CUA.
25 minute wait & still no
@wmata train. I gave up and called @Uber. $11.45 vs $4.45, but I'll get to work
on time.
This is what @wmata is referring to
as a "smoke incident" [see photo]
on a 7000 car now, automatic
announcements sound like auto tuned Cher song being played underwater.
I kid you not...#wmata BL train
operator just called into ROCC in the middle of this crisis to complain that he
was missing his lunch break.
So the pattern is: new GM, press
tour/honeymoon, brace for bad news, brand #BadNews, do nothing, retire, repeat.
#wmata
Wonder how much they paid a
consultant to come up with "safetrack" Any idea?
….followed by this tweet in
response:
they used 5 of their 70 in house
social media peeps ...you know, of the 69 that weren't doing anything.
Want more? Go to UnsuckDCMetro at https://twitter.com/unsuckdcmetro?lang=en
– new and compelling stuff comes in all day long. But it’s not all passenger
outrage and misery. There’s occasionally some wry humor in the variety of ways
that Metro can and does screw up -- like this next one, from UnsuckDCMetro’s Facebook
page. Doesn’t anybody at Metro read their own stuff? Or could it be that no one
there actually knows how to spell “Woodley Park”?
“Woodly Park. Fly to the zoo.”
And finally, just so I can end with something about Metro
that doesn’t suggest everything’s going down the tubes (and no, that’s not a
reference to London’s Tube, the fourth greatest public transportation
system in the world, according to CNN travel experts - see http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/life/10-best-metro-systems-746919/)
let me pass along this story of a commotion outside the Van Ness station that
was NOT Metro’s fault. Hey Wally, Let’s blame this one on The Beaver! (Be sure
to click on the video in the story below.)
Happier riding next week (though you’d better not get your
hopes up too high)!
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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.
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