Transit in D.C. – A Honey of an Anklet

Silver Line progress report: 50

A revenue service date for Phase II looks to be fall 2021, at the earliest, as reported by Scott Fields for Reston Now.

Silver Line progress report: 49

While I was away, something was updated: westbound signage now designates the Phase 2 terminus at Ashburn. Station maps still show Phase 2 as under construction, with no station names.

Details

TIL that Metro platforms have a slight slope away from the edge, so that anything casually dropped doesn’t roll onto the tracks. (Ronald H. Deiter, The Story of Metro: Transportation and Politics in the Nation’s Capital, rev/e, 1990, p. 43)

Silver Line progress report: 48

MWAA says that Phase 2 will be “substantially completed” by April 2020. An optimistic estimate of how long Metro will spend testing pegs an opening date of September. But there are known defects that haven’t been addressed. Don’t hold your breath for a September 2020 opening.

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So, um, I was apparently the first Twitterite to notice that the pylons at the reconstructed Van Dorn Street station were borked.

In Metro’s defense, as Jordan Pascale reports,

“… yesterday’s media tour preceded Metro inspections that would have flagged and corrected this issue,” Metro spokesperson Ian Jannetta said in an email.

Silver Line progress report: 47

Barring new hitches, MWAA has set 16 July 2020 as the opening date for Phase II, according to reporting by Max Smith. WMATA is noncommittal on the date.

It was the engineering

The irritating canard about Metro service to Georgetown, exploded one more time: “How the urban legend of Georgetown residents halting a Metro stop came to be,” by Topher Mathews.

I researched the archives of the Washington Post and the Washington Star, looking for contemporaneous mentions of local opposition to a Metro stop in Georgetown. Throughout the period of the planning of Metro (i.e. the 1960s through to the system’s opening in 1976), I could not find one example.

Silver Line progress report: 46

Phase II may not be in revenue service until this time next year. Quality control has been a sticking point.

Silver Line progress report: 45

More bumps in the road for Phase 2. Lori Aratani has the report.

Silver Line progress report: 44

Earlier this week, test trains began running on the section of track from Innovation Center to west of the airport, as reported by Max Smith.

Pennsylvania Boogie-Woogie

ICYMI: An archive of conceptual designs for Metro’s system map by Massimo Vignelli.

Silver Line progress report: 43

Defects in precast concrete panels at five of the six stations under construction threaten to delay a 2020 opening of Phase 2 of the Silver Line.

Silver Line progress report: 42

Lori Aratani has an update on Phase 2: design and construction 67% complete, and the project is two years from “substantial completion.” Come Phase 2 in 2020, I will miss boarding at the terminus in the morning, but presumably I will be jostling with fewer people on the platform for a seat.