Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Vinegar or Honey? With Metro, it Doesn't Matter.


The Human Transit blog has a provocative piece about how crucial it is to heap praise on transit systems to make them work better and feel better about themselves. Apparently, the non-D.C. resident author of the post thinks Metro needs to have its ego stroked.

The sentiment seems to come from the same, odd place as Greater Greater Washington's amazing "is the Post too hard on Metro?' item.

I do think praise of individual Metro employees who go above and beyond is great, and I pass it along or amplify others' praise when I see it.






I'm less clear how a sclerotic bureaucracy like WMATA responds to praise, if it does at all. That said, I don't know that the criticism offered up by this blog has made much of an impact either.

Metro seems immovable. They do what they want to do no matter what.

Contrary to Human Transit's notion, Metro does not have a self esteem deficit. If anything, Metro is an egomaniac, and that is probably because it heaps enough praise on itself for five transit systems.

Just check out this press release about Metro's self graded report card. (dive in deeper, to page 29 here and find that actually, train delays were up 8 percent.)

If you don't want to read the release, here are the grades Metro gave itself:



Or, you can check out the City Paper's despin of Metro's report card.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Is Paying to Enter Fair?


I've gotten a lot of very irate, one-line emails about this Metro policy.

I've never been on another subway where I've entered only to want to leave immediately upon finding delays, crowding, etc. I've definitely paid Metro for several trips not taken.

Perhaps other readers have experienced what other systems do in a situation like the below.

From Lauren:
Last Tuesday, I entered Farragut West only to find the Orange Line completely FUBAR. I promptly left to take a cab because I needed to get someplace in a hurry.

I wasn't happy to pay $10 bucks to the cabbie, but what really steamed me was having to pay Metro almost $2 just to enter and leave in less than a minute.

What a ripoff!

I had no idea what mess I was getting into. There were no alerts, and I saw nothing on the Metro website before I left the office. The signs at the station didn't indicate anything was awry. So I swiped and went in.

I've asked several friends about this charging to enter policy only to find out it's standard practice.

I have another word for this: stealing.

Where do they get the nerve to charge their customers for that?

I should add that the platform was dangerously overcrowded. I guess that was a bonus.

If Metro can come up with a fare scheme that only an astronaut can understand, it can figure out a way to not charge people who, like I did, turn around and leave after finding Metro broken again.

That was the last cent I've given Metro. I've been walking, biking, cabbing and hitching rides with friends ever since.
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