The Infrastructure Expectation and D.C. Metro

One point I failed to make in my previous post regarding infrastructure. I argued in that post that key to solving the energy crisis is the larger issue of infrastructure. I wrote as an example of my own ability to never ever hardly drive because I live in the D.C. Metro region, an area that has historically invested in the public transportation infrastructure. What I failed to write was "what have ya done for me lately." Today is a year since I've been on a Metro train. Metro has been working for years to scare the living shit out of me and to convince me to ride buses instead. A year ago, those trains killed nine people and at last forced me to a more time-consuming but more reassuring commute. I mainly stopped riding because I was sick and tired of the trains stopping underground; I don't like the feeling that gives me, not after I was stuck underground for 20 minutes when Foggy Bottom caught fire a few years ago, and not after 9/11. It's not a rational reason. But it's mine. But then you see some stories. Like how this one train was taken out of service and blasted through like six stops before someone realized that there were two women aboard the train, held hostage by their own attempt to commute. Or, there's the recent story of a bunch of ten-car trains on the track when they're only supposed to use an eight-car train or fewer (this leaves the last two cars of the train stuck in the tunnel). Or, there's shit like this:

So it's not surprising to me that a report by The Washington Post says that, one year following the fatal wreck, Metro's record on safety has not improved, and that this is in part due to a failure to invest in the system and in a failure to regulate it as well. The part I forgot to mention is that the Washington Metro system is in a shambles, and there is precious little being done to improve and invest in this system that I've been riding since I'm 12 years old, even in the wake of nine dead people. That is the sad truth regarding what once was one of the nation's finest commuter rail systems. And it is why I'm likely to be a bus guy for the duration.