Washington Metro Update

[MARC Rider]

I've been going to a conference in Washington this week, which includes some Metro riding. Here's an update:

1. Looks like the 7000 series cars are back in service with a vengeance. I've made 6 rides so far, five of them were on 7000 series equipment. I guess they fixed the problem that took them put of service.

2. Headways on the Red Line are down to about 6 minutes (they were around 10 minutes when I rode last November.) Morning trains out of Union Station at about 7 AM were pretty crowded. Evening trains into Union from downtown at about 6 PM were crowded yesterday, not so much today.

3. I had some dead time, so I took the Silver Line out to Dulles Airport. It takes about 45 - 50 minutes from McPherson Square. By comparison, a MARC express takes 50 minutes to get from Washington to Baltimore; the local takes an hour. There were over 20 stops. Did I say it was a lo-o-o-ng ride. The station is on the far side of a parking lot from the airport terminal. I think there might be an underground passageway, but I didn't get off, as I needed to get back into DC in a timely manner. I hope the underground passageway has a moving sidewalk, as if it doesn't, the Metro doesn't comete very well with an Uber/taxi or bus drop-off right at the terminal. Most of the route from Tyson's Corner is in the median of the Dulles Toll Road. This means that the stations (Reston, Herndon, etc.) don't really interface very well with the surrounding neighborhoods they serve. Also, I'm not sure why the trains seem to run very erratically in the long distances between those outer stations. I mean they speed up and then slow don for no apparent reason, certainly not rail traffic as the silver line is the only line on the route and is running at ~13 minute headways. And even when they're running fast, they're not running as fast the automobile traffic right next to them. Not good marketing. Can this be engineered so that the trains can at least run as fast as the cars do on the adjacent freeway? In short, I wonder whether building this line was worth it. There certainly weren't very many passengers, though it was in the middle of the day when I rode. Rail service to Dulles and Loudon County might be more useful if it were more of an express service and somehow connected into the MARC and VRE commuter system, which could provide one-seat rides to Dulles from Baltimore, Fredericksburg, and Manassas. And it would have been better if the stations weren't located in the freeway median, which, in my opinion, is one of the worst places to locate a transit station.

 

[MARC Rider]

Here's the Dulles terminal from the platform of the Metro Station. You can see how far of a walk it is. Google Maps claimed it was 0.5 mile. It's a shame they couldn't have located the Metro station closer to the terminal.

 

[jis]

View attachment 31043

Here's the Dulles terminal from the platform of the Metro Station. You can see how far of a walk it is. Google Maps claimed it was 0.5 mile. It's a shame they couldn't have located the Metro station closer to the terminal.

My Google Map says it is 1200' from the station to the checkin area of the terminal. Which Google Map is telling you it is 0.5 miles? Is it measuring the distance to a C Concourse Gate?

 

[MARC Rider]

My Google Map says it is 1200' from the station to the checkin area of the terminal. Which Google Map is telling you it is 0.5 miles? Is it measuring the distance to a C Concourse Gate?

I don't know for sure, but I would tend to agree with the 1200 ft. distance, just from eyeballing it, but when I ran a Google Maps directions by transit from "Dulles Airport" to "McPherson Square," it told me to walk 0.5 miles from the airport to the Metro station. I guess I should have gotten off the train and paced the distance.

 

[jis]

I don't know for sure, but I would tend to agree with the 1200 ft. distance, just from eyeballing it, but when I ran a Google Maps directions by transit from "Dulles Airport" to "McPherson Square," it told me to walk 0.5 miles from the airport to the Metro station. I guess I should have gotten off the train and paced the distance.

Or you could use the distance measuring tool in the Google Map App in case you were not in the mood to go for a step counting walk

 

[Ryan]

If only there were a way to find out what it's like to get from the metro station to the terminal.

“It’s nothing different than any other airport walk,” said Dan Miller, who lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Miller just took a Metro train to Dulles for the first time and described it as being “really convenient.”

“I’ve had walks just as long at other airports around the world,” Miller said. “It reminds me of Denver.”

 

[Rex Block]

I hope the underground passageway has a moving sidewalk, as if it doesn't, the Metro doesn't comete very well with an Uber/taxi or bus drop-off right at the terminal.

Yes, there is a moving walkway.

https://www.flydulles.com/parking-transportation/dulles-airport-metrorail-station
During the design phase, there was a long engineering back-and-forth regarding bringing the railside physically closer to the terminal. It was determined to be prohibitively expensive and disruptive. There were also architectural and esthetic considerations with running a platform up to the edge of the terminal.

Not sure what's up with the speed variations. That part of the Silver Line has some rollercoaster sections which are not typically found on light rail, so that might be part of it. It's also very new rail so there might be spot speed restrictions in place.

One-ride seating has been a pipe dream in the DC area since forever. Obviously with IAD now committed to light rail, it will never happen with MARC or VRE, but those last two could certainly try to integrate a bit more closely.

Welcome to DC and hope you enjoyed your trip to the airport!

 

[joelkfla]

One-ride seating has been a pipe dream in the DC area since forever. Obviously with IAD now committed to light rail, it will never happen with MARC or VRE, but those last two could certainly try to integrate a bit more closely.

How are they committed to light rail?

 

[jis]

How are they committed to light rail?

I think s/he really meant Heavy Rail, since that is what WMATA is according to the classification used by the Federal DOT.

 

[Rex Block]

I think s/he really meant Heavy Rail, since that is what WMATA is according to the classification used by the Federal DOT.

Yes correct, I meant the subway/Metro which I thought would be considered light rail.

 

[City of Miami]

BWI is the light rail that gets closest I know of. STL isn't bad either. DCA is a 10 minute walk from Metro I'd say, which is half mile isn't it?

 

[George Harris]

Don't know why the speed up and slow down, or the slower than highway traffic. The Dulles line was in the maybe, just maybe, possibly someday category when I left there, but that was 1978. Allowance for placement in the median was the concept when the Dulles highway was built. If you were to put it off to one side or the other, all that would do for you would be to determine which people get the long walk and which people get the short walk, depending upon which side of the highway they happened to be on. As to distance to terminal: In another airport line I was briefly involved in, the official architect for the airport did not want the line in or immediately adjacent to the terminals because of its effect on the ambience, or whatever other architect speak rationale the guy used. Whether that was a factor here, I do not know. It could well be the station is where the "footprint" for it was positioned in the original design of the airport, whether there for that or other reasons.

The original maximum design speed for WMATA was 75 mph, but I had heard somewhere that it had been decided to decrease that to 55 or 59 mph. Within DC itself that was reasonable because due to station spacing the trains could seldom get even that fast. However, in outer areas the story would be different. Presuming the curves and equipment mechanics permit it, the Dulles line would be a primary candidate for 75 mph operation. "Roller Coaster" profile is not a factor in design speed here. The maximum allowed grade in the WMATA design criteria was 4.00%, which, though excessive for a railroad is quite acceptable for a metro type system, and not much less than maximum allowed highway grades, and probably about the same or greater than the actual grades on the Dulles Highway. Rate of change in vertical curve limits I do not recall, but they were in line for those of a highway. At the speeds involved, vertical curve rates are more undercar clearance and vertical angle between car related than anything else, although in high speed rail vertical acceleration is the deciding factor. (In highways and roads, the vertical curve design factor is stopping sight distance.)

 

[Trollopian]

BWI is the light rail that gets closest I know of. STL isn't bad either. DCA is a 10 minute walk from Metro I'd say, which is half mile isn't it?

I've never timed it, but it's a very manageable distance from Terminal 2 (DCA's main) to either of the two Metro entrances; see the terminal map at Terminal Map. The walk includes a people-mover or two and is protected from the elements, though once you get to the Metro station you find that it's an above-ground open-air platform. And if you have bulky luggage you gotta wrestle it through the faregates and up the escalator. No complaints from this occasional flyer and light packer. Well, yeah, complaints, but more about Metro's reliability. (I confess: if I have a flight to catch from DCA I usually get there by cab rather than risk a Metro Meltdown or even just unlucky connections on a two-segment trip...but I always, always take Metro when I return).

 

[skylar]

BWI is the light rail that gets closest I know of. STL isn't bad either. DCA is a 10 minute walk from Metro I'd say, which is half mile isn't it?

I imagine it depends a lot on how you measure it. It looks like the Google Maps pin for IAD is in the middle of the main terminal, so I'd take that as more of an average case. SEA also has a decent walk from the Link station, but the layout of the airport means that it makes a big difference depending on whether you need to get to the Alaska desk vs something like Air Canada. I always treat the walk from public transit at an airport as some needed exercise before I sit for hours, though.

 

[jis]

I've never timed it, but it's a very manageable distance from Terminal 2 (DCA's main) to either of the two Metro entrances; see the terminal map at Terminal Map. The walk includes a people-mover or two and is protected from the elements, though once you get to the Metro station you find that it's an above-ground open-air platform.

Measured on Google Map it is about 1,000' from the center of the main concourse to the center of the Metro platform using the North walkway. So I'd say it is more than manageable

 

[Trollopian]

Measured on Google Map it is about 1,000' from the center of the main concourse to the center of the Metro platform using the North walkway. So I'd say it is more than manageable

Yeah, whatever the distance, it's almost surely shorter than a typical walk from the terminal to a departure gate (with a nice long wait at the TSA queue) .