I like that on the new boards, we can earn points. Because on the old boards, my posts were totally pointless.
I'm not dead by the side of the road, so there's that. No actually it's going really well. Loving the facility and the coworkers and the view out the office window (it's Culpeper, but there are also nice mountains). But gracious the traffic in DC is horrible!
Agreed. While it is much better than the old board, it will take some time getting used to it. And there is an edit button! Yay!
I meant to check in with you! I'm glad you were able to get settled. I hope things are going well in your neck of the woods! And yes, DC traffic is a whole different animal, isn't it? People in southern California like to complain about the traffic, but it really isn't too bad considering the vast distances that are considered "normal" for a commute. But DC traffic is just terrible in every way imaginable. But at least we have Metro, which is a safe, efficient, cost-effective, and well maintained alternative...right?
I recently went to DC for a week and we relied on the Metro and had no issues. I'm curious, as someone with obviously a lot more experience, what issues do locals have with it?
There have been long-term maintenance projects that were pushed off for many years, that are finally all starting to hit the fan at the same time. There has been a $5-billion rebuilding effort over the last 5 years, but there is little to show for it, other than huge waits between trains (particularly late at night and on weekends, when 25+ minute waits aren't unusual and no set schedule is published). And recent information seems to indicate that this work wasn't enough, and they'll be asking for an additional $18-billion to do additional repairs There have also been glaring safety lapses that have led to major delays, injuries, and deaths. Just yesterday, the NTSB held a board meeting about a smoke/fire incident last January that sent dozens of passengers to the hospital and killed one. Among the revelations out of that meeting were that it was (but apparently no longer is) standard procedure to send trains filled with passengers into smoky tunnels to investigate what might be causing it. We're literally canaries in the tunnels (which is sort of like a coal mine) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...nings-and-someone-died-it-could-happen-again/ Combine all that with an inefficient organization structure that has equal input from DC, Maryland, Virginia, and the Federal government, aging infrastructure, a lack of rail cars to run daily operations, and systemic workforce problems, and it's a perfect storm of problems. DC's Metro was built in the 70's at the expense of having any real freeway access in/through the city, and now that it is proving to be unreliable, there's really no alternate way for people to move around I know BART has recently gotten some press for problems along one line, but from my understanding it's relatively minor compared to what's going on here throughout the system
Thanks, @FerretAfros. I don't rely on BART, I only use it to get into the city or two a baseball game on the weekends. I know it has issues including the one you speak of, but they don't affect me much. Hopefully Metro can get its act together because I agree, the DC traffic puts LA to shame.
For occasional trips, I don't think our Metro is too terrible. I only really became aware of how deep the problems were when I began commuting on it about a year ago. In general it still gets people where they want to go, but it seems like patience is wearing thin
I realize this has drifted completely off topic, but I have to share the video of today's incident on the Metro. This happened at the beginning of service this morning (there are passengers on the train in the video), and caused some minor disruptions, but everything went back to 'normal' relatively quickly. There was a similar incident at the beginning of the evening rush hour, when they finally decided to shut down service through that section of the system 2 Metro Stations Closed After Fires; Service Cut on 3 Lines Even when you think you've seen it all, they still find a way to surprise you
Whew...I thought Doobie had a catastrophic server crash or some other sort of emergency. Good to see everything up again. It's a nice format, although I liked the former as well. It felt en vogue retro. But then have been on for nearly 15 years and nary a feature change, I suppose its a good time to update the functionalist of the boards. Looks very nice.
After being so busy the last few weeks I can't so much as catch a breath, eat, or sleep, things are finally calming down. I love the new format and feel bad, after being so active here for so long, to vanish the moment it debuted! So thanks so much to Doobie, the mods, etc., for giving us such a nice community.
It's nice to be back on LP and to find these wonderful changes. I hope to reconnect with some old friends. It's been a long time.
