What “SPECIAL” really means…
8 minute read
October 3, 2012, 12:14 AM
This morning as I was taking the Red Line to work and reading the Express, I read the DC Rider section, as I usually do. Today, they ran a rider Q&A with Dr. Gridlock. One of the questions that was posed was about Metro’s destination signage, which I quote here along with Dr. Gridlock’s answer:
Q: Why doesn’t Metro label trains during their weekend shutdowns? Several times this weekend on the Green Line, I saw passengers confused by trains that were only labeled “Special” with no color line identified on the front. One lady rushed off a train at L’Enfant Plaza because she thought it was a Yellow Line train, and another guy was about to try to transfer because he didn’t know the train was going to Congress Heights.
Dr. Gridlock: I don’t see any good coming from labeling trains “Special.” When Rush Plus began, Metro officials made such a big deal out of telling everyone to watch the destination signs.
I have a few concerns with this response. First off, the response mixes up regular service with temporary service changes for track work. Metro’s Rush+ is the regular service pattern during the hours that it is in operation, and comes with certain things like programming in destination sign information for the regular terminals if need be, maps, and permanent signage. Service changes for track work are only in effect for a weekend, and thus what Metro has at its disposal is different, and it’s not always feasible to make things look like they do in regular service for weekend service changes. Second, they leave PIDS completely out of the equation in the response. And last, there seems to be a lack of understanding on both parties’ part about what makes Metro pull out that “SPECIAL” destination sign in the first place.
Continue reading…
Categories: DC area local news, WMATA
I didn’t want to have this I-told-you-so moment, but…
3 minute read
July 18, 2012, 8:53 PM
You know, I really didn’t want to have the I-told-you-so moment that I had today. But when it comes to Ride On in Montgomery County and those Navistar Champion cutaway vans, well, I called it right.
First of all, I am talking about these Ride On “buses”:
Yes, the cutaways. What’s happened is that today, after yet another fire involving the Champions (bus 5208 in this case), County Executive Ike Leggett announced in a statement that the Champion cutaway vans would be immediately withdrawn from service – permanently. This supersedes earlier plans to phase out the Champions over 18 months.
Categories: DC area local news, Ride On
The Iraq War is over?
3 minute read
December 15, 2011, 9:37 PM
So apparently the big news today is that the Iraq War is over. It’s an announcement that’s come eight years, eight months, and 26 days later than it should have (truth be told, it should never have even started), but it’s better late than never.
Of course, I’m not entirely sure if I want to believe our government when they say that the Iraq War is over. I want to believe them – I really do – but considering that the Iraq War was built entirely on lies from our federal government, I have no reason to take them at their word. How many different rationales were there for our going in? Weapons of mass destruction? Yellowcake uranium? Bring freedom to the Iraqi people? Bringing the fight to them before they bring it to us? Others? As it turned out, there were no weapons of mass destruction. The yellowcake was a lie. The first victory announcement (“Mission Accomplished”) in 2003 was a lie.
We also expended scads of money – much of it off budget – for a war we should have never been in, while people go hungry in this country, while teachers must spend their own money on necessary school supplies, and while we still don’t have universal public health insurance (don’t get me started on the shortcomings of Obamacare). And what did we accomplish in Iraq? Nothing. We are no safer today than we were when we went in. Our own freedom as a nation was never in question. No one fought for your freedom or mine in this war. The war was all about oil, and I don’t believe we even managed to get our hands on that (good!). Your tax dollars at work.
With the president of Egypt gone, the people rejoiced.
5 minute read
February 12, 2011, 11:51 PM
It’s been all over the news by now, of course, but the reign of (now former) Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has come to an end. And as it turns out, my prediction was spot on. Back on February 1, Nicole Sandler tweeted this:
Does anyone really think the #Egyptians will allow Mubarak to stay in power until Sept elections? Me neither
I retweeted Nicole Sandler’s tweet, and then replied:
@nicolesandler Honestly, I doubt that Mubarak even lasts two weeks, let alone until September. #egypt
I said less than two weeks, and ten days later, he abdicated. It was one of those things, I believe, that we all knew was coming but were surprised to see actually happen.
As the snow stops, here’s what we’ve got…
3 minute read
December 20, 2009, 6:44 AM
Well, it looks like the snowfall is over. The snow has stopped, and the folks at Capital Weather Gang say that clouds will decrease during the day. Meanwhile, we’re pretty much buried in the white stuff, and here’s the proof:
My car has a foot or so of snow on top of it. That snow is expected to stay on there until at least some time tomorrow, because there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere today.
Categories: DC area local news, Snowpocalypse
I’m surprised that this made it through…
4 minute read
December 14, 2009, 7:48 PM
A friend recently referred me to a Dr. Gridlock column where Les Dorr Jr. of Frederick, Maryland wrote this:
Is Metro trying to increase public confidence by renumbering the 1000-series rail cars? I ride the Red Line every workday, and recently I’ve been aboard two very old, obviously 1000-series cars that had “4000” series numbers on the end doors.
Dr. Gridlock was very cordial about this accusation being slung at Metro, saying, among other things, this:
The 4000 series of 100 cars, built by Breda, entered service in the early 1990s. The 1000 series is scheduled to be replaced beginning in 2014. But the 4000 series also is reaching an important milestone: A midlife rehabilitation needs to be done over the next few years, at a cost of more than $1.5 million per car.
If I were going to fake a number in the Metro fleet, I would have picked something higher than 4000. Still, riders would see through it: The cars are very obviously showing their age.
Categories: DC area local news, WMATA
“The color coded alert system was security theater at its best, and blatant fearmongering at its worst.”
2 minute read
July 16, 2009, 9:45 PM
So said “BFS” in the Express. And for those of you who have been following this site, “BFS” is me, as I usually post comments for Express using my initials. And my comment got published again, as seen at right in this excerpt from page 28 (56 in the PDF file) of Express.
According to an article on page 4 of the July 15 edition, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has “appointed a task force to determine in 60 days how effective the current system is.” The idea is to either overhaul it or do away with it entirely.
I’m surprised that they’re even appointing a task force for it. I’d just ditch the thing outright. After all, if you step back, what did the terror alert system do? It was propaganda. It told people when to be scared, and what to be scared of. And it was no secret that the system was used by the Bush administration to score political points. Every time they wanted you to be scared, they just looked into the camera, and said…
It’s “orange”! Oh, no! Grab your duct tape and plastic sheeting and head for the hills!
And looking at the history of threat level changes, it seems to prove that the Bush administration wanted you to be scared at times that were advantageous to them. What officially tipped me off is when they raised the threat level to “orange” at the beginning of the Iraq War, and left it there until just after they took Saddam Hussein down. They worked long and hard to make you scared of Iraq, and so when they went in and invaded an unarmed nation, they wanted to make doubly sure that you would be fearing the terror boogeyman. Apparently, wetting your pants was patriotic, and if you didn’t wet your pants, the terrorists would win.
And once people stopped paying attention to the terror alert scale, Homeland Security stopped using it, as we never saw an alert above “yellow” nationally after August 2005. And we never saw a “green” or even a “blue” threat level. You’d think that they would have dipped it down into “blue” a time or two just to make the public think that they were doing a good job. After all, if you’re going to manipulate it to make people scared, you might as well manipulate it to make the people think you’re doing something right (even if you aren’t). But instead, the two bottom levels were simply decorative.
So in the end, I think that the Homeland Security task force will scrap the alert level system entirely. Its main purpose is to make people afraid of things they can’t do anything about. And you know what they say – why worry about a problem you can’t solve? Like I said in the comment, it’s security theater at best, and blatant fearmongering at its worst.
Categories: National politics, News
I saw this picture, and…
6 minute read
July 2, 2009, 9:32 PM
I saw this picture on the front page of the Express on my way to work this morning, and it scared the heck out of me at first:
Photo: Kichiro Sato/AP
After a four-hour commute, I am home.
5 minute read
June 22, 2009, 11:55 PM
Today was one of those days where I was glad to be home again after work. Metro had its deadliest accident in its history today, with six confirmed dead as of this writing, as two inbound Red Line trains collided between Takoma and Fort Totten stations:
Photo: Carole Watson (WRC)
Categories: DC area local news, WMATA
Epic newspaper fail…
2 minute read
April 29, 2009, 9:52 PM
First of all, hello from Stuarts Draft, where I will be through Tuesday.
It’s funny… after we all said hello, I looked at today’s Staunton News Leader, and look at what sprang up from their front page:
Categories: Virginia local news
So I find out that Augusta County is planning on killing an elementary school…
3 minute read
January 1, 2009, 4:28 PM
While my father and I were out today, he told me that he had heard that Augusta County might be closing Ladd Elementary, which is in Waynesboro.
First of all, before I even researched it, I said it was probably a good idea to abandon the site. First of all, the facility is indeed an Augusta County school, but it’s located within the independent city of Waynesboro. That happened because the area that the school is in was annexed by the city of Waynesboro in the 1980s or so. So it’s an anomaly for being a county school that’s no longer in the county. But it’s also now in the middle of a large shopping district, with Wal-Mart directly across the street, and Home Depot, Martin’s, Target, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, and a plethora of other smaller retailers within a short distance from the school. Traffic is hideous outside the school, with signs for tractor-trailers telling them that the school is not a turn-around. Plus I’m sure some other retailer would snap up the school site in a heartbeat to peddle more crap to people.
Then I found an article in The News Virginian about the plan. How interesting. They want to close and sell the Ladd location in Waynesboro, close Beverley Manor Elementary School near Staunton, and expand Wilson, Cassell, and Riverheads elementary schools to accommodate more students. They say no teachers will lose their jobs, since it’s more of a consolidation than a closing. And the idea of moving the Shenandoah Valley Governor’s School into the old Beverley Manor building was tossed around as well. Currently, that facility shares a building with Valley Vocational Technical Center.
Categories: School, State and local politics, Virginia local news
My comment made the newspaper!
< 1 minute read
October 29, 2008, 8:18 PM
I can’t believe it… my comment on Express‘s poll question got published! The poll question was, “Would you object to having your bag searched by transit police before riding Metro?” 54% said that yes, they would object, and 46% said that no, they would not object.
If you read the Express today and saw the three comments that they published on page 40, you may recall that “Ellen” indicated that Transit could go ahead and search them because they have nothing to hide, “CMJR” suspected that profiling of riders will occur, and a third by “BFS” sounded very similar in tone and idea to a Journal entry that I wrote yesterday, talking about throwing money down a rathole.
“BFS”, as you might have guessed, is me, as I posted semi-anonymously, using my initials. Here’s the page, with the comment circled:
Categories: DC area local news, WMATA
So Metro throws money down a rathole once again…
3 minute read
October 28, 2008, 8:23 PM
According to an article in today’s issue of The Washington Post, Metro has announced that they will be doing random bag searches in response to security concerns regarding the upcoming election and presidential inauguration.
Based on what I’ve read about it, including the Post article and WMATA’s press release, what they’re going to do is set up shop in a station mezzanine or bus stop, and count off a certain number of people such as 15 (I selected this number and will use it throughout this entry), and then stop the person who happens to be that unlucky fifteenth person to search their bags. It’s kind of like an adult version of duck duck goose, except the one who is “it” has a gun. The idea is that these random searches are being conducted to search for explosives, and will take 15 seconds to complete – about as long as a train station stop lasts.
So let’s poke a few holes in this idea, shall we?
First of all, searching every fifteenth rider or whatever does NOT provide any real security. You see, for every one you inspect, you’ve let another fourteen go by. Thus you’re only inspecting roughly 7% of riders. And so when you’re letting 93% of your riders go through uninspected, all you’re doing is wasting the time of the other 7% who you are stopping.
Additionally, the 15 seconds to conduct the inspection is about as long as a train takes to make a station stop. Therefore, being pulled over for the inspection could make the difference between making your train or missing it. During the evenings when train headways start to run around 15 minutes, that makes a significant difference between making it home at a reasonable hour or not. Just thinking about my commute, if I leave outside of rush hour, I have to take the Y bus home. I’ve had to wait more than 30 minutes for Y buses at Glenmont at times, due to the poor service that Metro provides on that route. Thus for a commute that normally takes an hour, it can get stretched out another 45 minutes just having to stand around waiting for the train or bus because you missed your intended train due to their “security” inspections.
Categories: DC area local news, Security, WMATA
A prostitution ring in Dupont Circle station?
2 minute read
July 11, 2008, 12:13 AM
That just blows my mind. Two Metro employees are accused of running a prostitution ring out of the Dupont Circle Metro station. According to the July 10, 2008 Examiner article called “Metro manager accused of prostitution agrees to life skills, education program”, station manager Sharon Waters, dubbed the “Metro Madam”, and custodian Pam Goins were accused of “arranging sexual trysts for money”, even going so far as to use the station’s PA system to “facilitate an arrangement”.
You may recall that Dupont Circle is my work station. I go through Dupont Circle station twice a day every day, and have seen both female station managers and female custodians at the station. So now I wonder if it was anyone I know, since I occasionally talk to personnel in the station, especially if I worked late and I know there won’t be a Glenmont train for a number of minutes.
Of course, the PA system part really gets me. Have you ever heard Metro station PA announcements? They’re not exactly the gold standard for clarity. In fact, most of them are downright unintelligible, particularly the ones piped in from Central Control. The announcements that originate from the station manager’s kiosk are a bit better than the ones that come from Central, but still not exactly crystal clear, especially since the primary construction material in most stations is concrete. Too many announcements sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher, i.e. completely unintelligible. Maybe those hooker announcements sounded a little better, but who knows.
Categories: Amusing, DC area local news, WMATA
And I can tell them where that gift card should go, too.
2 minute read
December 18, 2007, 9:59 PM
For me, most of the “Eye Openers” stories on page two of the Express, with their snide and somewhat sarcastic headlines and such, get read right around the vicinity of Forest Glen or so, and then are soon forgotten. But this one not only caught my interest, but had staying power.
The story was about a program in Rancho Cordova, California, where police are stopping drivers who are following traffic laws, and giving them $5 gift certificates to Starbucks. The idea is, according to police Sergeant Tim Curran, a method to “promote the holiday spirit and enhance good will between the traffic unit and the motoring public.”
Well intentioned, sure. Well thought out, no. They’re trying to build goodwill with this, pulling people over, and giving them a gift card worth five bucks. If it were me getting pulled over just so that the cop can give me a five dollar gift card, that whole “goodwill” argument can get thrown right out the window, since I certainly wouldn’t be taking the card in the goodwill in which it was given. At best, they’d be greeted with outright hostility from me for wasting my time, pulling me over to give me a card worth five bucks. At worst, the cop would have to bend over in front of the chief while the chief gets the needle-nose pliers and a flashlight to remove the card from where I would have placed it. All in the spirit of the holiday season, of course.
Categories: Advertising, News