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What’s Going on With Metro (Bus)?

it’s arrived, originally uploaded by cacophony76.

NBC is reporting:

“A power outage at Metro’s headquarters has led to massive problems systemwide, allowing people to ride some buses for free and shutting down WMATA’s Web site, call center and e-mail alert system.”

Anyone get a free ride this morning?

Category: Transit

By: Prince Of Petworth | 04 November 2009 9:52 AM | 9 Comments

ShawRes

Yep! On my bike. Like every other morning

But no srsly one of my coworkers said she got a free ride this AM, so something’s definitely up…

November 4, 2009 at 10:09 am
Andy (2)

My ride on the 32 was $1.25 this morning – but it was pretty early so perhaps I’ll have free ride home.

November 4, 2009 at 10:11 am
dcmom

I get a free ride on the bus about 25% of the time, but not this morning. I did notice that my regular 20-25 minute bus commute was nearly double this morning. I also heard that metro was packed and slow.

November 4, 2009 at 10:50 am
CB

I got a free ride on the X3, but like dcmom said, my waiting time was 20 minutes longer than usual.

November 4, 2009 at 10:59 am
Bonifa

I’m with dcmom. I find that the card readers on busses don’t work surprisingly frequently. You’d think that’d be the first thing to send a bus to the maintenance facility…

November 4, 2009 at 11:15 am
ogden

Just about every metro system using these fare cards is having issues. At least WMATA defaults to ‘free ride’ when the system doesn’t work.

In Chicago, by comparison, the drivers screech at passengers and make them reswipe their card over and over and over until the machine recognizes it. And then the passenger gets on the computer to check their balance and finds that they’ve been charged multiple times for one ride. Sometimes getting a refund is possible, but requires forms filled out and waiting for processing. But depending on the type of farecard you use, sometimes you are just out the money.

November 4, 2009 at 11:35 am
Goot Lemmon

It’s not very assuring to see how the system can suffer a near-total meltdown as a result of little more than a power failure. Isn’t this what backup generators are for?

November 4, 2009 at 11:35 am
Taylor

I knew something was up when NextBus wasn’t working… I’m so reliant on it these days! I decided to walk rather than take my chances. I only saw one bus on a 30 minute walk down 16th street.

November 4, 2009 at 12:34 pm
J

I get a free ride maybe 10-20% of the time (once or twice a week). I took a bike in today, but I did notice large crowds of people at the bus stops.

November 4, 2009 at 12:37 pm