Live Q&As

There are many questions and comments today about safety and security on Metrorail, many following up on the Friday night brawl that ranged from Gallery Place to L'Enfant Plaza.

Incidents like the brawl, which apparently involved as many as 70 people, are very rare, but everybody's attention -- rightly so. More common, according to my experience and what other riders tell me, are incidents involving rowdy behavior among school kids, both in the morning and afternoon.

This is a chronic problem that hasn't been solved by chats between transit police and school officials.

When we're talking about U.S. subways, there's New York, and then there's everything else. Even though the DC region has the second largest subway system in the nation, it's still tiny compared to the New York subway.

In NY, there are enough officers assigned to the Transit Bureau to conquer a small nation. So far, we haven't had the same needs here. Lucky for us.

Still, I think our transit force needs to be much larger. Riders need to see officers.

On the jurisdictional issue: The NY subway is completely within the borders of the city. It made sense to integrate the NYPD and the transit police. Our subway passes through many jurisdictions. We can't make the transit police part of all the law enforcement agencies -- federal, state, county, city, village -- through which the subway passes. I think we need to focus on making the transit police stronger.

Metro's top managers have been wrapped up in the big safety issues of preventing crashes and preventing terror attacks. That's great. But the day to day experiences of riders don't involve those horrible events. If they did, no one would get on the trains.

No, I find riders more concerned about relatively mundane incidents that have a big impact on their experience with the transit system.

On police response time: Many incidents are going to be handled by a relatively small force of transit police. It's going to take them time to reach any given station. The more officers we have, the shorter the response time will be. That's a reason I think we need more transit officers.

Hadn't heard about that problem. Most commuters I'm hearing from these days who mention Independence Avenue want to talk about the congestion down toward the west side, because of the National Park Service's Ohio Drive reconstruction.

I've seen countdown signals jump in odd ways. Very troubling if you're half way across a wide street.

I believe the ones you're concerned about are the responsibility of the District Department of Transportation. The usual way to submit a request for a fix is to contact the Mayor's 311 Service Request Center. See if the information on this page helps:

http://311.dc.gov

Yes, exactly. I believe this initiative has been going on for at least a few years, and you should see the same style mile-marker on Interstates in other states. For example, you would have seen them on the New Jersey Turnpike.

So many of us have cell phones. One of the first questions a trooper is going to ask a driver calling in an emergency is to give the mile marker.

You've probably also noticed that many state are renumbering their highway exits to match the mile markers.

I think the higher fares may contribute to some safety improvements, though most of the improvements I'm thinking of are in the capital budget, rather than the operating budget where the fare money is going.

Through all those months of budget hearings, Metro officials never promised that the fare increases would make service better. They always said the money was needed to prevent things from getting much worse.

Montgomery County police: 301-279-8000 (the non-emergency number)

From time to time, I do hear this complaint about parked cars on GA Ave in Silver Spring. Not as much, though, as I hear from drivers in downtown DC about parked cars, double parked cars and delivery trucks at rush hour.

I'll check on the ceiling. It's been like that since last fall, right? The ceiling structure was deteriorating, so Metro put up barriers around it. This makes the platform very narrow for people using the exit at Conn and L.

On the single tracking: Metro says you're going to get a faster trip if several trains in a row go through the work zone in one direction before switching directions.

Think of the parallel situation on a two-lane road. When one lane is blocked for construction, the flagger is going to send a long string of cars through the work zone before halting traffic and allowing the cars from the other side through. If the flagger instead alternated cars from each direction one at a time, it would take forever to get through.

This weekend's Red Line work was unusual in that it brought the Red Line rehabilitation project into the downtown area. The project is underway most weekends, but we normally see the single tracking out toward the ends of the line.

There wouldn't be any track work there during the evening rush. And there haven't been any slowdowns for track circuit monitoring out that way in a while.

I think most likely it's the trains getting bunched up in the outbound direction, just as they do inbound in the morning.

Also some afternoon trains stop at West Falls Church and head back downtown, to ease congestion on the downtown platforms. Turning a train back is likely to slowdown the trains behind it, in the neighborhood of East Falls Church. 

The operator should be telling the riders why the train is stopping.

That man's actions sound like they meet the definition of armed robbery, don't you think? The more people calling 911 as soon as they can, the better. (But if I'm on that train, I'm not holding up a cell phone right in front of the guy and calling anybody.)

I'm so glad to hear you reported the incident, and I hope lots of other people did, too. There are plenty of situations where the behavior of a passenger is ambiguous. Is it just annoying, or is it dangerous? There's no ambiguity about the situation you described.

Same with the incident Friday night: I hope plenty of people were reporting trouble as the train was moving between Gallery Place, through Archives and onto L'Enfant Plaza.

I think people should follow the rules because that's the right thing to do. A rider's response shouldn't depend on whether a Metro employee or anybody else is breaking the rule against eating or drinking. They shouldn't do it and neither should the rest of us.

Metro transit police do patrol the trains and the stations. Trouble is, they have a bigger jurisdiction than any of our other local forces, and it includes the trains, buses, rail stations, bus stops, parking lots and garages, rail yards and bus garages.

There aren't enough of them for that. Also, the more officers you put on the trains during one shift, the slower their response time is going to be to an incident, like a fight, that breaks out suddenly on another line a few stations away.

I'm a little concerned about the degree to which Metro police and local enforcement officials talk about transit safety in terms of preventing a terror attack. I sure think that's important and I very much appreciate their efforts to keep us safe.

But riders express far more concern about the day to day experiences with unruly people. Crime rates on Metro are extremely low. But that's clearly not much comfort to riders who have been describing incidents here.

Riders must be safe. They also must feel safe. Both those things are important to the health of the transit system. Otherwise, people won't ride.

Response times: I think there's not enough communication between local police and transit police. When there is communication, I think the inclination is to let the transit police respond first, even though they're a relatively small force and not necessarily the closest to the scene.

That would be a problem. I hope that people with cell phones that work in the rail system will call 202-962-2121. Or if you're aboard a train, hit the intercom button and talk to the operator.

Lots of times, people aren't sure whether they're dealing with a true emergency and they're reluctant to call 911. Contacting the operator or calling the transit police number is something of a middle ground.

(Station manager training and supervision is an issue here, too, but it's a much broader issue.)

Hope you're not going to be waiting for the game to start. I'd leave two hours for the trip. It shouldn't take that long, but that's real long trip across one of the nation's most congested regions. Lots of things can happen.

I'd do Dulles Toll Road to the Beltway outer loop around to the Wilson Bridge and then down Route 5 -- in other words, the standard route.

I don't like to get fancy: Use the fewest roads, with the most lanes, and the lowest number of turns.

So far, it's been a little difficult to follow the descriptions of this incident. There are many things I'd still like to know: Where did the big fight start, on the street, in Gallery Place Station, on the train, at L'Enfant Plaza? What exactly was the response of DC police and Metro transit police? To what point did the officers respond?

Were Metro riders calling in on 911 or to transit police?

What, if anything, happened when the train reached Archives Station, between Gallery Place and L'Enfant?

I would absolutely not park at an out of service meter. I think you're very likely to get a parking ticket.

On resources, let me just quote to you quickly from Chief Michael Taborn's description of the transit police department as it appears on the Metro Web site. It's just the generic, official version, but I think it will give you the idea of how spread out the transit police are now (remember, the officers aren't all on duty at the same times or days):

"The MTPD has an authorized strength of 420 sworn police officers, 106 security special police, and 24 civilian personnel. Officers provide a variety of law enforcement and public safety services on the Metrorail and Metrobus systems in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

"MTPD police officers have jurisdiction and arrest powers throughout the 1,500 square mile Transit Zone that includes Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for crimes that occur in or against Transit Authority facilities. It is the only tri-jurisdictional police agency in the country and serves a population of 3.2 million."