Riding Metro in 2017: Some Very Unpleasant 'Surges' Are Coming

Metro heavily adjusted its "Surge" schedule for its SafeTrack plan in 2017 recently, but how will the new schedule affect you in the coming months? It's a little unclear, but it definitely won't be easy on riders.

That's because three of the final five surges don't have dates attached to them anymore. Work on the Green, Orange and Red lines are scheduled for sometime between April and June this year, but it's anyone's guess -- including Metro's -- when exactly they'll happen.

What we do know if that the Blue Line is next, and specifically the segment between Rosslyn and the Pentagon. A Surge is scheduled to last 18 days starting on Feb. 11 and lasting through Feb. 28. This will involve a total line segment shutdown, so if you travel to Rosslyn from south Arlington and beyond, or vice versa, you're going to have to find alternative ways of getting to work for nearly three weeks next month.

The next Surge after that won't be a full line segment shutdown, thankfully, but it will be twice as long. There will be continuous single tracking on the Blue and Yellow lines at a number of spots in Alexandria from March 4 until April 9. The first phase will be from Braddock Road to Huntington/Van Dorn Street, the second from King Street to Van Dorn Street (Blue Line only), and the third and final phase will be from King Street to Huntington (Yellow Line only).

After that, things get hazy. The third surge of 2017 will happen sometime in April and May and will involve single-tracking between Greenbelt and College Park in Prince George's County.

Then, in May and June, Metro will have continuous single tracking at Minnesota Avenue to New Carrollton. And finally, in June, the Red Line will single track from Shady Grove to Twinbrook.

"SafeTrack is an accelerated track work plan to address safety recommendations and rehabilitate the Metrorail system to improve safety and reliability," Metro says on its website. "Through SafeTrack, Metro will complete approximately three years' worth of work into approximately one year. The plan significantly expands maintenance time on weeknights, weekends and midday hours and includes 16 'Safety Surges' - long duration track outages for major projects in key parts of the system."

As always, Metro is encouraging everyone to avoid using their system and find other ways to get to work. Metro has been extraordinarily successful in this regard, as ridership has been plummeting throughout the system due to Metro's ongoing woes.

Image via WMATA