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We Regret the Inconvenience- DC’s Broken Subway System
What’s going on with the second largest subway system in the United States is stunning and dangerous. It isn’t really working anymore and the mood of the average Metro subway rider in Washington, D.C. is getting increasingly dark and angry. It is palpable and widespread and worse than it has ever been. So, of course, Metro is considering holding public hearings on possible fare increases and service cutbacks next week.
We subway riders do occasionally talk to one another and a common concern these days is that you never know what you will confront on an average weekday morning or evening commute. There’s no confidence of arriving to work on time. There’s no sure thing about when you get home. Increasingly, there is concern you may not get to work or home at all. Paying more for the honor and the risk seems rather outrageous.
January 12th
Surely, when 61 year-old federal contractor, Carol Glover, woke up Monday morning, January 12th in her Alexandria, Virginia home, she had no reason to suspect it would be her final day. Twenty four hours later the cause of her death would be established; acute respiratory failure due to smoke exposure after being stranded on a Metro train outside the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station later that afternoon.
More than 80 others would end up hospitalized that day, some 200 evaluated by medics. A friend of mine from work was on that train. He self-evacuated. He was following the lead of two military guys on his subway car who were initially patient as they waited for instructions. But as 15, 20, 30 minutes went by and the situation just got worse and worse and smoke was now getting into the subway cars- they had all had enough. They managed to open one of the sets of doors, identified where the electrified 3rd rail was to stay far clear of it and walked a few hundred feet to the station platform. They were actually surprised at how close they were to the station and shuddered to think of the dozens and dozens of their fellow riders who continued to wait for help while Metro officials managed to turn the event from an “incident” into a near catastrophe.
On Tuesday, February 10th, the National Transportation Safety Board sent letters to Metro officials explaining what they saw as the cause of the problem that day along with an urgent plea to have Metro correct a major flaw: it has no way of knowing where smoke might be in their tunnels. And because they didn’t know that an electrical arc had caused the smoke or where- Metro officials miles from the L’Enfant Plaza station took steps that only made matters worse- much, much worse.
On February 11th, the NTSB made the letters public. From the Washington Post that day:
Metro botched the operation of ventilation fans in and near the L’Enfant Plaza station during a fatal smoke emergency last month, causing a mass of noxious fumes to move hundreds of feet toward a train in a tunnel and then linger around it while scores of riders gasped for air, federal investigators said Wednesday.
In its most detailed revelations yet about the Jan. 12 incident, the National Transportation Safety Board outlined a sequence of missteps in which Metro controllers, 11 miles from the scene, activated two sets of giant fans at cross-purposes with devastating consequences.
The two sets of fans, on opposite ends of the train, were both pulling the smoke instead of one set pushing while the other pulled, the NTSB said. As a result, the mass of fumes settled over the stationary train and stayed there.
And there’s more. While his bosses back at Metro headquarters were accidently ensuring the smoke in the tunnel would go toward and eventually envelope the train, the subway operator forgot to shut off the ventilation system in the cars so all the smoke outside the trains went inside the cars. You could have actively tried to injure people and not had as much success as Metro bosses and the train operator had that day trying to help.
Just this past weekend, there were at least three other “smoking” incidents in the Metro subway system- two at the Foggy Bottom station near George Washington University and one at the Woodley Park station near the National Zoo. The explanations range from smoke caused by the train’s brake systems to smoke caused by a “maintenance” problem.
Thank You for Riding Metro- We Hate You
But noxious smoke is not the extent of the trials and tribulations for Metro’s beleaguered riders. There is rarely a day that there is not a major delay or its cousin, the infamous “residual delay,” that Metro apologizes for constantly. I cannot even count the number of times such delays have caused dangerously crowded platforms.
This is usually when train operators are at their surliest. A funny thing happens when trains stop running for, say, 30 to 45 minutes…they get crowded. Cue the internal intercom system that only works sporadically. “Passengers, I REPEAT, stop leaning on the doors. We will be going nowhere if you are leaning on the doors. I will NOT hesitate to offload this train.” The trains are late, the platforms and the subway cars get crowded and the operators yell at the passengers. Nice.
Realistically, of course, on most trains, the operator’s disdain for us would have sounded more like this:
“[unintelligible feedback noises]…assengers…stop lean…[unintelligible feedback noises]…nowhere…[unintelligible feedback noises]…offload…”
Obey Metro’s Commands at Your Own Risk
One of my favorite incidents that I personally witnessed was the time a mechanical malfunction had occurred on the yellow line and the trains had to single-track through the Pentagon City station. At one point, the station manager ordered the 1,500 or so people I estimate were stacked up on the platform, to go up the escalators and go to the other side of the tracks- that a train headed to D.C. would be operating on what was ordinarily the track headed away from the city.
So we all made our way to the other side. Then came the announcement, “Passengers, we regret the inconvenience, could you please move back to the original platform?” And so we issued a large group groan and then trudged back up and down the escalators. The voice, I presume from Metro headquarters, continued- a special little message to the station manager that we could all hear. “Could you please stop communicating with the passengers until you hear from Metro Central Control?”
Money Will Help- Good Management Would be Good Too
Metro is asking for more money from each of the jurisdictions in the Washington area. It is asking Congress to restore the full tax benefit for subway commuting that was drastically cut back last year and resulted in ridership losses. Failing at these efforts, Metro will consider upping fares and cutting back on service again.
I don’t think these Metro folks understand the fury that is out there. Too many people regularly arrive to work late or have been stuck on a train or a platform when they just wanted to get home to their families. Too many people have to put up daily with broken escalators, elevators, and turnstiles. But more importantly, too many people have been killed or injured.
Here’s a list: That’s 11 dead and 94 injured in Metro collisions that occurred in 1982, 1996, 2004, and three in 2009. Derailments have killed 3 and injured over 40. In fact, during a 20-month period starting in January of 2003, there were a total of 8 Metro derailments. This is all in addition to January 12th of this year.
I don’t think this is just a money issue. All the money from all the jurisdictions in the DC metro area will not fix what appear to be incompetent management and a culture in which the users meant to be served by this subway system are actually treated like annoyances and unwelcome cargo. Metro seems to be simply overwhelmed.
And what remains unsaid but is surely on the minds of Metro’s hundreds of thousands of commuters and their families- is what happens on that awful day when someone or some group purposely tries to inflict harm on the residents of the nation’s capital by attacking its subway system. Will there be anyone at Metro who will have a clue about what to do to save our lives?
I suspect we will be totally and completely on our own.
Oh Brian, Brian, Brian
Brian Williams really is one of the good guys in the journalism business. Smart, funny, unassuming, a regular guy’s regular guy…especially for a network television anchorman, a category not generally known for humility.
And now his career seems to be threatened not just because of what turned out to be the tall tales he repeatedly told about a chopper ride in Iraq 12 years ago, but by an apology many saw as disingenuous and complete with weasel words like “misremembered.”
Let’s see if we can make some sense out of this because “liar” is just not one of the words generally used to describe Brian Williams.
Rich Krell was the pilot of the Chinook helicopter that carried Williams and three other NBC staffers ahead of the advancing American military forces during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Krell talked to CNN this morning and has a different take on the whole thing than the crew members of the other choppers interviewed by Stars and Stripes.
Krell notes that the chopper Williams was riding in did take small arms fire. The choppers were carrying bridge parts and extensions that took the brunt of most of those bullets. And the helicopter was part of a 3-chopper formation that flew together and ended up taking evasive maneuvers after coming under fire. Krell says the Williams chopper separated from the others as it went off to drop off the bridge extensions. They returned and the brief trip to deliver the bridge parts would explain why the crew members of the other helicopters said Williams showed up later.
Williams embellished the story through the years. Small arms fire became rocket propelled grenades. The three-chopper formation, he said, was a four-chopper formation (Krell says the 4th one developed mechanical issues so only three flew in formation that day). In various interviews through the years, he has mentioned fearing for his life, which might or might not have been the case with small-arms fire, but certainly makes for a good yarn. And here’s where we start getting, I think, to the truth of the story.
Williams, like many journalists, is a story teller. And he’s good at it. And he tells stories like good story-tellers do; with passion, conviction, detail and 100% sincerity. Even, in this case, while taking license with the facts. I imagine Williams is not the first person to ever tell “war stories” that are full of bluster and exaggerated breathlessness, but unfortunately for him- he is a famous television anchorman who happens to be the face of NBC News.
If I was Brian Williams, here’s how I would do a second take on the apology. What did seem disingenuous about the mea culpa, was a seeming implication that he had told this story just once, the other night as he tried to recognize the heroism of a military man at a sports event. Not true. He has told the tall tale many, many times before and there are plenty of video/audio clips of such. Here’s what I’d say if I were Brian next time there’s an opportunity for a chat with Jimmy Fallon or David Letterman:
“The chopper I was in did take small arms fire. It was not hit by an RPG. I have told this story often through the years and each telling has gotten more and more dramatic…like something you might do at a bar with friends. But I am a newsman with a daily broadcast seen by millions. It was irresponsible of me to embellish like that and I have learned my lesson. Credibility is really the only asset I have as a newsman. And now I have to work very hard to regain your trust. I ask everybody for another chance.”
I’d be quite inclined to give him that chance if he leveled with us like that.
In the future, I would also advise anyone facing similar circumstances to use a thesaurus to find a synonym for “misremembered.” I don’t think this reaches the level of “I lied.” But maybe something like “wild-ass exaggerating” or “intense embellishment,” might go down better than the weasel-like “misremembered.” Nobody wants a word like that to end up being their contribution to the English lexicon.
Garcia Media Life 
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