Jeff Quinton's Tumblr Blog

Metro Fail

I left my MARC Transit Link Card at home today (it had become demagnetized for Metro use already earlier this month) so I had to buy a Metro farecard when I got to Union Station today.

I went ahead and put $6 on the card and ended up missing the first Red Line train out of Union Station toward my transfer destination of Gallery Place because of an especially challenged Metro customer trying to use the farecard machine.

The next train, also a 6-car one, was showing 8 minutes on the sign on the platform. The next train after that one was also listed as a 6-car train with 10 minutes between the next train and it. The platform was like a sauna. I didn’t make the train after the 8 minute wait because it was short and because of a few stubborn passengers who didn’t move out of the way of boarding passenger.

It looked like I was going to be leaving Union Station a lot later than usual but then all of a sudden an 8-car train showed up on the board with a 3 minute wait (3 mins after the last one and 7 minutes before the next one.) It was virtually empty when it got there and still empty enough that everyone boarding could have sat down. Of course, we waited a good 4-5 minutes on the platform before finally leaving.

I finally left Union Station’s Metro platform at 6:47, a good 20 minutes after my MARC train got there.

When I got to King St. to walk to work, I had fun waiting on the station manager who was dealing with the usual summer morning tourists having trouble with the farecard machine. I had to wait for him because my brand new farecard just purchased at Union Station, was telling me to see Station Manager and wouldn’t let me leave. He tried to fix it a couple of times and finally let me walk out the gate and told me to try it again later and if it didn’t work I’d have to go get a refund (which means I’d have to buy a new farecard if I absolutely had to have one.)

I’m glad I take VRE in the afternoons to get back to Union Station. This situation with longer headways and shorter cars around the 6:30 a.m. timeframe on the Red Line at Union Station was going on well before the wreck last week.

I’m wondering why people paying for Rush Hour service at that time of the morning aren’t getting it.

The Saga continues

After my initial post last night, I decided to try to do something about my non-functional Transit Link Card (at least the Metrorail portion of it won’t work - apparently de-magnetized or never magnetized in the first place prior to the month of May.)

The MARC 503 Train arrived on time around 5:25 a.m. today and I headed for the Metro entrance at Union Station. I had to show my pass to get in since the fare gate is still not an option for me. I decided last minute to not change to the Yellow Line at Gallery Place and contined on the Red Line to Metro Center.

I got to Metro Center and had to go down an escalator to the Orange/Blue platform and then back up another escalator to get to the other Red platform where the Sales Office is located. Every single window was closed and the station manager at his nearby office told another gentleman who walked up about the same time as me that they didn’t open until 7:30. This was around 6:40-6:45 so I trudged back down the steps to the lower level platform and took the Blue Line to King St and arrived to work just a few minutes later than normal, but still prior to the 7:30 that sales office opens.

I had gone to the Metro Center sales office in the first place since Commuter Direct’s site said to replace de-magnetized cards go there or to the Pentagon one. I had no idea where the Pentagon one is (it apparently is outside the actual station up by the bus bays) so I headed to the Metro Center one.

I have since discovered the hours of the Metro Center sales office are posted online at the WMATA site but arriving there via the menu system wasn’t that intuitive to me - I finally gave up and did a site search.

The hours there are 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. I am at work before 7:30 almost everyday and I’m usually avoiding Metro on the afternoon commute by taking VRE northbound. The one or two days a week I take Metro to Union Station in the afternoons, I actually am running behind schedule and trying to make a train on time. I did discover the Pentagon one opens at 7 a.m. so I may try that next time - however the Yellow line train I’m usually on arrives at a time that things appear to be a madhouse around there.

I guess I’ll go to the Pentagon one afternoon or morning or if I have to, I’ll leave early to go by Metro Center. I can imagine what their lines and bureaucratic BS might be like if I’m even able to get a replacement card.

This is yet another time to say that a 5-10 minute schedule adjustment for MARC or VRE would mean me saving $960 a year and never having to take Metro again unless I was late or chose to.

MARC/Metro/VRE TLC Rant

I commute from Baltimore to Alexandria everyday. This results in me needing to ride the MARC Penn Line in the morning and then, thanks to MARC-VRE scheduling issues I will mention again later on Inside Charm City, I have to take the Metro from Union Station to King Street.

In the afternoons, thanks to the MARC-VRE cross-honoring policy, I can ride the counter-commute on a VRE train that hits Alexandria at 5:52. At least one night a week I have to take Metro back to Union Station for the MARC train to Baltimore.

I buy the MARC Transit Link Card (TLC) every month for $280. $200 of that is for MARC and $80 of that is for unlimited rides on Metro (including Metrobus and all the other bus lines like DASH in Alexandria.) You can also ride the other MD MTA services like Light Rail and Metro with that card, so I hear.

I’ve been less than satisfied for several months with the form the TLC comes in. It’s a paper Metro Farecard which also doubles as the monthly MARC pass. It can get very ragged by the end of the month if you don’t have a holder to put it in. The traditional MARC pass holders are way too big for it and I don’t have an ID for work so no lanyard and holder to stick it in. This has only resulted in me having a card that was non-functional in the Metro once until now.

Unlike that one time when the card was in bad shape toward the end of a month, this was a brand new pristine TLC. I walked up to the fare gate at Union Station on Friday morning and slid the card into the slot and got the card spit out without the gate opening and a “See Station Manager” message.

I took the card to the manager, he did something with it and then just told me to go through the gate they walk people through. The same thing happened at the end of my ride at King St. and the manager there highlighted the dates on the one side of my TLC and told me I’d have to show my card all month.

CommuterDirect.com, where I purhcase the cards, has a phone number and also says I can go to the sales locations at Metro Center and the Pentagon to get a replacement card. I have yet to try this, but a coworker who had a regular farecard get demagnetized once told me he got the run-around trying that - i.e. they told him he had to call or e-mail.

So, I may be faced with a whole month of having station managers letting me in and out of the Metro system unless I get some resolution to this issue.

This brings up a question I’ve had for a while. Why can’t the monthly Metro portion of the MARC Transit Link card be directed to a Metro SmarTrip card? This would seem to be the simplest solution and one that would possibly save money.

I continue to buy the TLC because I have no choice. The issue I will discuss later at Inside Charm City will relate to one very slight schedule change that either MARC or VRE could make that would have me never buying a TLC again.

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