Is our Metro system cursed?

Many depend on metro system to get to work especially to get to Washington D.C. With the parking rate increase in D.C. ($2 for an hour to park including Saturdays) and the recent metro and bus fare increase by 10 cents (at least it is only a temporary rate increase till June 2010) to make up the $40 million deficit for the current year, metro riders are hesitant to use the metro. Is that the only reason? Early this weeks’ accident on the metro red line in Rockville killed two of the metro workers who were fixing the lines with control equipments. They were struck by the high rail truck while working on the lines past midnight.


Since this past June of 2009, Metro has been facing a downfall starting with the deadly accident of two trains colliding, killing 9 people including the train operator and hurting 80 people, followed by a train striking and killing a person on the red line in the same month. There have been some accidents or the other in every single month up until now. While everyone should understand that if a person voluntarily stands on the track or jumps in front of the train, (to commit suicide) than it is not the metro’s fault, it also becomes important that metro accidents of killing workers and riders brings down the confidence of people wanting to ride on the metro. To where metro is now in terms of rating, it had taken a decade for the same metro to build up its ratings in the years past.


The chances of getting yourself killed are much higher when one rides on the metro. People are scared to take the metro anymore. In addition to this, metro is not making any improvements in terms of making its system safer to travel. When the tracks are not safer, old models of cars still carrying passengers, one does not want to give up their lives for takes. The general manager of metro, Catoe has resigned for these precise reasons. He does not want to be killed on the tracks while he is doing a walk-through on the work that is being done.


To compound to the issue, metro is increasing fares, instead of increasing the safety of the metro system. On one hand, there is the deficit that metro needs to cover and on the other you need to get more metro riders so that metro can get more revenue. But that is not going to happen until people feel that it is safe to ride the metros. If metro wants more riders, increase the safety of the trains and then increase the fares if need be. You cannot take away the carrots (train safety) in front of the donkey (passengers - pun intended) and except it to walk towards you (metro revenue increase) also.

Pants on, pants off

Make up your mind for once. This week seems to be pants off week. I am talking about two different things but will get to the other in a bit. January 10th is the no pants! ride subway day. This was started by Improv Everywhere in New York City in January 2002 and has been going on every year since then and has caught on in many major cities. In 2002, Improv Everywhere started this event with seven people to create "scenes of chaos and joy in public places." So this January 10th was its ninth anniversary and if you were riding the metro in NYC or Washington DC or any other major city, you would be enthralled with the sight of people riding the metro with their pants off.


Men and women who participated in this event walked in the metro as normal people – I mean with their pants on and after they boarded the train, they took their pants off, folded it and set it aside and continued to act normal by reading their newspapers or chitchat with fellow riders. It sure did get some smiles and some smirks among their riders. I hope no one was wearing boxers that read ‘wifeys pick’ or any other crazy wordings. With the weather being frigid on that day, many people were bundled up with thick jackets, hats and scarves. In the midst of this, to see people stripped down to boxers and panties called for stares and wonder.


Along the same line, on Jan 13th, General Larry Platt, a contestant in American Idol performed the catchy rap during auditions in Atlanta (oh no!). His song (which he wrote himself) was called ‘Pants on the ground’. The basic theme was to wear your belt or else your pants would drop off when you are talking to folks in a stylish manner with your hat turned sideways. Larry was not selected even though his song got laughs and applause from the judges and audience since he was above the age limit for the show. He is 62 years old but his song sure brought out laughs to many of us. I am sure it is going to be a hit song or some song writers would use it in their albums. Whatever happens, this is our 2010 'Macarena' - "Pants on the ground, pants on the ground..."


Here is the link Pants on the ground. Enjoy it and have a few laughs….

Suck it up... yet again

Just when you think that you can use the toll road to get to the place you want in Northern Virginia, despite the fact that you are paying to go from one parking lot to another, you hear the news that the toll price will be doubled. By 2012, the toll prices will be doubled on Dulles Toll Road. It is said by the officials that the increase in the toll will help fund the Metro rail’s $5 billion expansion in Northern Virginia and also for the 23-mile Silver line connecting East Falls Church Metro station to Dulles International Airport. If metro rail needs to be expanded, why does toll have to go higher and toll road users have to pay for something that they are not or won’t be using? I do not use the Metro rail ever and the few times I use the toll road (I resent using the toll road) I have to pay increased prices, so that I would be contributing towards the Metro project.


Airport Authority took control of the toll roads from the State, since 2005, so that they can assist the Metro project and had decided to increase the toll on main plaza from 75 cents to $1.50 and to increase by 25 cents on other exits. Instead of blindly saying that the toll will be increased to such amounts by 2012, they should have meetings or suffrage every year to decide whether such increase is required. When the toll roads were opened in the mid 80s’, authorities never intended to keep on collecting tolls from its users. They wanted to collect the money to pay for the costs and maintenance. After such a point was reached, they were going to stop collecting tolls. I guess such a point was never arrived at. The toll kept on increasing from 10 cents to 35 cents now on each exits. But if they are doing it to pay for maintenance or expansion of toll roads, it would justify the fact. But to fund for other projects is absurd.


To top this off, some states, especially Maryland is charging $1.50 a month for those E-Z pass transponders on toll road. Delaware and Virginia collect deposits, instead of charging monthly fees, but Delaware will not return the deposit at the end, when the transponders are returned. Then it is not a deposit, is it? I own that EZ pass transponder as well and the few times I have used it to get off from toll road to go to Tysons (thinking of it, the last time I ever used the toll road was in Jan 2008) and it had been a convenience. When the EZ pass was introduced in Virginia, people paid $35 to be on reserve to use the EZ pass along the East coast, so they don’t have to waste their time on the toll booth, trying to get the change out from their pockets. Paying in advance, guarantees the authorities, that one would use the toll road but having to pay a fee to use that transponder in ridiculous.


If toll keeps on increasing, nobody will build or rent office space in and around the Dulles corridor and no one would use the toll to get there either. Dulles toll road is strangled with the traffic and has become a parking lot of a kind. Why pay to be on a parking lot on toll Road, when you could be taking side roads to get to where you want for the same time and traffic? The purpose of the toll road was to get to a place quicker than other routes but if that purpose is not fulfilled, and then it becomes another normal road. Then why pay to be on a normal road? To borrow from Malcolm X, "NOVA, you've been had! You've been took! you've been bamboozled!"

When the fail-safe fails…

The latest news that echoes in all the channels of television and radio is about the metro train accident that happened on Monday evening. In the early hours of rush hour commute on the Metro red line, an inbound train with six cars rammed into another inbound train that was stopped in the same lane, leading to nine deaths including the train operator. Both these trains were heading towards Shady Grove. This accident is one of the deadliest accidents in the metro history and the mangling wreckage happened between the Fort Totten and Takoma Metrorail stations. Seventy six passengers are sent to the hospital for treatment. No body yet knows how this accident occurred or what the cause of the accident was. The standing train had 5000 and 3000 series cars with data recorders in them, whereas the striking train is old modeled with 1000 series cars with no data recorders. Investigators are going to use the data from the data recorders to recreate the accident scene in theory to figure out the cause of the accident. But since the striking train has no data, it has become difficult to simulate the scenes.


Investigators are also looking into work hour schedule of the operator of the striking train, her training records and work records to figure out if her train riding skills are at fault or if she was fatigued on duty. It was told that there were announcements on the train that a train was stopped ahead and the striking train halted and then started to roll on again. Also, the emergency ‘mushroom’ brake button was pushed, indicating that the striking train has used the emergency brakes. Apparently, the striking train’s safeguards did not kick in. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?(It is a latin phrase - Who will guard the guards). The main purpose of the safeguard on a train is to stop the train in case of emergencies and if that fails, then what is the safety net?


Though this is an appalling incident, many on the train would see this as grounds for lawsuits. It is in deed metros fault, since the striking train was due for an inspection and also it was required to upgrade the cars of the train to a better model that could track data to make the train safe for commute. Many in the D.C. metropolitan areas depend on metro to commute to their work. If the metro is not safe, then many would avoid taking the metro which would not be favorable to metro in terms of generating revenue. While I do understand that metro is not making much revenue running their trains, they need to inspect their trains and make it safe if they want to market to people to use metro more, to carpool more to avoid pollution and fuel consumption.


In India, most of the population depends on public transportations like buses and electric trains to commute within and in and around the cities. From schools to colleges; from offices to site seeing places, public transportation is favored. While this is true in European and Asian countries, it is not that much in use in the U.S. During the times when the authorities advertise to use the public transportation more, .there is some incident like this that would through a wrench in. Even with the bus systems, there are not that many buses on the route or that many routes are not covered for the people to use the bus systems. If public transportation is not made easy for the public to use, then why would anyone get into the hassle of using them in the first place?