Extra commuter trains for furloughed workers (10/1/13)

[CHamilton]

Shutdown And Out: Waiting For The Train Home

Two extra midday commuter trains left D.C.'s Union Station this afternoon, shuttling federal employees deemed "nonessential" home to Virginia and Maryland.

A mass of people, many with government ID badges dangling around their necks, clustered below the MARC train schedule board. Some chatted quietly or munched on granola bars, briefcases at their feet. Most gazed trance-like at the screen, waiting for the orange LED "boarding" sign to flash on, indicating that they could get on their trains home.

MARC commuter rail tweaks Tuesday train schedule to accommodate furloughed feds

WASHINGTON — With many furloughed federal workers in the nation’s capital going home early Tuesday, MARC commuter rail is adjusting its afternoon schedule.

On MARC’s Brunswick line, a special midday train will depart Union Station on Tuesday at 2 p.m., making all stops to Martinsburg, W.Va. To accommodate this train, a 4:25 p.m. departure is cancelled.
On the Camden line, a special midday train departs Union Station at 2:15 p.m., To accommodate this train, a 5:22 p.m. departure will be cancelled. But a train departing Union Station at 5:53 p.m. will make additional stops at Riverdale, College Park, Greenbelt, Jessup, and St. Denis.

Government shutdown will hit Northern Virginia hard

Virginia Railway Express officials said they will continue normal operations Tuesday, and may bring in larger trains to handle an early evening rush hour of furloughed government workers. VRE officials plan to make a decision on Wednesday commuter trains later today based on demand.

 

[Ryan]

Yeah, I mentioned that in the now-locked thread discussing this.

It'll be interesting to see how service shakes out for the rest of the week.

 

[fairviewroad]

Kudos to MARC for its flexibility.

 

[Ryan]

They usually do this on "getaway days" (Friday before holiday weekends, Wednesday before Thanksgiving, etc, etc), so the service patterns are in place, it's just a matter of executing them.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

VRE has said they will run a regular schedule today, but might run an 's' schedule tomorrow. ...Now they did say the same thing yesterday as well...

 

[Tracktwentynine]

They weren't really "extra" trains. They simply moved two trainsets from later departures to earlier mid-afternoon departures.

There were the same number of trains on all three lines.

 

[battalion51]

VRE has said they will run a regular schedule today, but might run an 's' schedule tomorrow. ...Now they did say the same thing yesterday as well...

They're probably looking for numbers to come in from their Conductors about how heavily patronized the trains were. If the demand is still there why remove supply?

 

[Ryan]

Over on this side of the river, the demand isn't there. My wife had some errands to do over near the Odenton MARC station, and she said that the lot that usually fills up by 0800 was a virtual ghost town around noontime.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

We must have a lot of essentials - or non-Federals - over here on the south banks of the Potomac... VRE is running a full schedule again tomorrow.

 

[Anderson]

VA may have a modest bias towards Pentagon workers, who may be proportionally less prone to being declared nonessential.

Edit: There's also a decent chance that non-federal workers may bias towards VA.

 

[Tracktwentynine]

I generally commute a little later than most people (I shoot for a 9:30A arrival at the office, and leave around 6:30P). I use Prince George's County Transit (bus) plus the Metro Green and Red Lines. I have not seen a huge drop in riders during that time period. It is noticiably less, espcially on my bus, but it's not drastic.

WMATA says that Metro ridership is down 20% compared to last week.

If the #shutdown drags on for a longer period, we might see sharper trends. People might be using this time to complete errands and whatnot, but they'll probably run out of them soon. And a lot of tourists may have already been in Washington. As time goes on, some will cancel trips, and that will depress ridership, too.

I haven't seen any actual numbers from MTA on passenger volume drops on MARC or anything from VRE.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Also not all Federal workers have been idled. See this article at WTOP: Not all federal agencies taking a hit in shutdown.

Additionally some agencies are using unspent money from last year to stay open. I have a neighbor who works for the FTC and she is still at work for an undetermined length of time. Its until the $ runs out.

 

[CHamilton]

Not surprisingly, DC tourism is hurting due to the shutdown, and it's likely to get worse. And ridership on the DC Metro continues to be down over 20%.

To the average tourist, consumption of DC's local heritage, restaurants, retail, etc., is an add-on sale coincident to the primary sale of visiting the Federal City....

That's great that DC is open for business as boosterism, but doesn't help the people who come here to visit the federal (mostly--Mount Vernon, the George Washington plantation, isn't federally owned) museums, monuments, and parks located in DC and Northern Virginia.

Or for people who visit to conduct business related to the federal government, which right now lacks the "head space" to focus on business not relevant to ending the federal government shutdown or the three days hence Federal debt default.

Otherwise the reporting is that lots of retailers and restaurants have lost 50% or more of their business. The subway system has a 20%+ drop in ridership. Although some of the private museums like the Newseum and the Phillips Collection--which over the weekend opened a new exhibit featuring the works of Vincent Van Gogh--are experiencing a significant rise in business.

But this is likely to drop off as people change their plans and cancel upcoming visits.