Community Corner
Surprise: Orange Line Metro Trains Slashed in Sudden WMATA Announcement
In a late Friday news dump, WMATA announced that five stations on the Orange Line would be shuttered for a month.
WASHINGTON, DC — WMATA had quite the news dump on Friday: a new statement indicates that a whopping five Orange Line stations will close for a full month. All of those are on the Maryland side of the line, but D.C. and Arlington County stations will also experience a 20 to 25 percent cut in service during that time.
WUSA 9 reporter Pete Muntean tweeted that WMATA board members weren't even notified of the sudden change, and there have been no station announcements. The statement was also released late on Friday.
The following stations will be closed May 16 through June 15: Minnesota, Deanwood, Cheverly, Landover, and New Carrollton. In addition, Orange Line stations in D.C. and Arlington County will have a 20 to 25 percent reduction in service, and Silver Line trains between Wiehle-Reston East and Stadium-Armory will be slashed in half during the surge, running every 12 minutes during rush hour.
Find out what's happening in Arlingtonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"Metro today announced service information for the final two SafeTrack surges on the Orange and Red lines," the Metro statement reads. "In order to minimize the customer impact elsewhere on the system and to maximize productivity, the surges, which were originally planned as continuous single tracking, will instead be "line segment shutdowns," where buses will replace trains at selected stations."
Buses will replace Orange Line trains between New Carrollton and Stadium-Armory stations.
Find out what's happening in Arlingtonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"To date, Metro's SafeTrack program has replaced nearly 35,000 crossties, more than 21,000 fasteners and more than 41,000 linear feet of rail as part of an aggressive one-year track work plan to rehabilitate the Metrorail system and restore infrastructure to a state of good repair. SafeTrack will achieve three years' worth of work in a single year," the statement adds.
#WMATA will close five Orange Line stations for a month.
- Late Friday news release
- Board members not notified
- No station announcements pic.twitter.com/JD04CEglt1
— Pete Muntean (@petemuntean) April 29, 2017
Image via WMATA
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