Young folks brawl on the metro

Most folks in the D.C. metro area have heard by now about the brawl on the metro last Friday evening involving up to 70 teens and young adults. The incident began at the Gallery Place Metro where dozens of young folks were fighting. The brawl continued on the subway platform at L’Enfant Plaza Station, terrifying other riders and causing a stampede.

So far three people have been arrested and four were injured. I’m surprised only 3 people were arrested. Two of the arrested were sixteen year olds.

Amid Metro brawl, family’s night out turns into ‘pandemonium’

By Valerie Strauss and Phillip Lucas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 9, 2010; A01

It was bad enough when Kimberly Hay’s family, riding the Metro to the Kennedy Center on Friday night to watch “Mary Poppins,” saw three youths assault a terrified young rider reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” by aiming an aerosol can at his face and spraying.

But the brawl they witnessed on the way home several hours later, which involved at least 70 youths fighting each other in a frenzy, left Hay’s nieces “freaked out” and the 43-year-old wary of riding the Metro in off-peak hours.

“It was pandemonium,” said Hay, who had traveled to the District from Charles County with her husband, sister-in-law, 25-year-old niece with special needs and two grandnieces, 11 and 14.

“We were pushing our kids out of the way, trying to plaster ourselves against the wall so nobody would hurt us. There were five fights right in front of us. . . . Metro is very accessible but not safe all the time. I don’t know if I would ride it again in non-rush hours.”

It was the second reported big fight involving young Metro riders in the nation’s capital this summer, and some elected officials called Sunday for better security and new approaches to deal with the problem.

The melee highlights the difficulties authorities have in dealing with teen violence and how it can encroach on a Metro system that routinely carries commuters, families, tourists and late-night revelers.

In June a youth was beaten over his shoes.

Violence among young people during the summer is a longstanding problem in the District, and it is the reason there is a curfew that requires city residents 17 and younger to be off the streets by midnight.

In early June, a fight that started on a Red Line train left a 16-year-old boy beaten unconscious by a group of people who had attacked him over his Air Jordan shoes, the boy’s mother said. Union Station was closed for about 30 minutes after a Transit Police officer responded and was backed up by more than a dozen other officers.

I only take the metro during the weekday to go to work and then go home from work.  Even then you have to worry about some of the young folks who board the train during the school year.  They can be very loud, obnoxious and down right vulgar. The young girls can be worse than the young boys.  I blogged about this back in 2007 and from reading yesterday’s article their behavior hasn’t changed one bit.

It was bad enough when Kimberly Hay’s family, riding the Metro to the Kennedy Center on Friday night to watch “Mary Poppins,” saw three youths assault a terrified young rider reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” by aiming an aerosol can at his face and spraying.

This_right_here. Spraying something in someone’s face? How trifling can you get? I swear it seems like some of these young folks don’t have any type of home training at all.  These kids (thugs, hooligans, whatever you wanna call them) are being raised on the streets by wolves!!

It would be nice if we can see more metro transit police on the trains.  But seeing how some of the young folks act they might fight the police.

Metro and seat hogs

The Washington Post has an interesting article about seat hogs on the metro/subway. According to the Post seat hogs are folks who sit in aisle seats with empty spots beside them but make no move to slide over and offer another passenger a seat or get up from the aisle seat so another passenger can sit in the window seat.   Seat hogs are also those who sit in window or aisle seats and place their bags, wet umbrellas, briefcases, etc. in the empty spot beside them or those who decide to take up the entire seat by sitting sideways with their feet propped up on the seat.

As Metro congestion grows, so does anger at ‘seat hogs’

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 19, 2010; A01

Brooke Timmons grasped a bar in the middle of a crowded Red Line rail car and held on, looking exasperated as she tried to keep her balance while the train jerked and accelerated down the track.

On both sides of Timmons sat riders referred to on commuter Web sites as “seat hogs.” A man and woman occupied aisle seats with empty spots beside them but made no move to slide over and offer Timmons a seat.

“There is a self-centeredness about it. ‘My space is more important than you,’ ” said Timmons, 37, a lawyer from the District. “It’s epidemic” and reflects a lack of etiquette in Washington, said Timmons, who grew up in Vinita, Okla., population 6,000, where she said gentility prevailed.

As Washington’s public transit network grows more congested, with Metro projecting “unmanageable” levels of saturation on its rail system by 2020, the phenomenon of people taking up more than their share of space is becoming increasingly touchy.

“It makes me mad,” Soulman Bushera, 26, an IT recruiter in the District, said as he rode a packed Red Line train downtown one recent morning. “I ask them to move,” he said. “You find a whole aisle of them sometimes, and the one you pick gets disgruntled.”

Twitter users and commenters on transit blogs such as Unsuck DC Metro frequently sound off about people who place purses, briefcases, feet or wet umbrellas on seats next to them in jammed trains.

I guess I’m somewhat of a seat hog.  I almost always get a window seat during morning and afternoon rush hour and place my tote bag on the other seat.  But I only do this when the train isn’t crowded and there are plenty of empty seats.  If I notice that the train is becoming more crowded I move my tote bag and put it on the floor.  Most times I put my tote bag on the floor anyway as soon as I get on the train, especially during the afternoon rush hour.

During the few times I’ve sat in an aisle seat I have my tote bag on the floor and if someone wants the window seat I get up so they can sit down. This usually happens when I’m on the train for only a few stops and I have to transfer.

One of the things that irritates me and some folks have commented on it in the comments area of this article is when you’re sitting in the window seat and Big Mama decides to sit next to  you.  Not only is Big Mama sitting on her side of the seat but her ample behind is taking up part of your seat as well.  I’m not small by any means but my butt manages to stay on my side of the seat.  Unfortunately Big Mama wants part of my side of the seat too.

“Seat hogs are so prevalent, and there is such a sense of entitlement among certain passengers,” he said, calling those who sit on the aisle, blocking empty seats, particularly “passive-aggressive.”

You can read the entire article here.

One thing I noticed about this article is that some folks aren’t asking the aisle sitters if they would either scoot over to the window seat or if they could get up so they can sit in the window seat.  Most folks aren’t mind readers so you need to let the aisle sitters know.  When I’ve been on a crowded train I ask the aisle sitter if I can sit in the window seat. Haven’t had any problems yet.

A few years ago during morning rush hour I was sitting in the window seat and a woman was sitting next to me. When it was time for me to get off at my stop I said excuse me so I could get off the train. Well this wench refused to get up.  After saying excuse me several times and not getting up all she did was move her body over and face the aisle.   And she was no small woman either.   Since she acted like a real bitch I had to fight my way of the seat and my purse knocked her upside her head.  Did I apologize? Hell no!!!  Since she was too damn lazy to get up from the seat so I could get out of the seat normally she took that risk of my bag hitting her upside her big head.

Giving a side eye to Mother Nature

Yes I am. The weather folks are talking about more snow tomorrow and Wednesday. The accumulation projections range from 5 to 16 inches depending on where you live in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Like I need more snow to shovel    But the good news is that I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. The federal government was closed today but today was my day off anyway. But I do get a snow day tomorrow. And after reading the Washington Post’s Get There column with Dr. Gridlock, if the government was open my train station won’t be open anyway. Metro is running on a limited service schedule. Fifteen stations are closed due to heavy snow drifts on the tracks. There’s also limited bus service as well.

Metro service limited on Tuesday

The effects of the past storm and anticipation of the next will limit Metro transit services on Tuesday.

Metrorail
The train system will open at 5 a.m. with limited service and may close early depending on how cold it becomes and how deep the snow gets. Fifteen stations will remain closed because the snow drifts on the tracks are so heavy.
Six-car or eight-car trains will operate at 30-minute intervals. They will travel at 35 mph.

Here’s the line-up:
Red Line Limited Service: Medical Center to Union Station and Glenmont to Forest Glen
Blue Line Limited Service: Franconia-Springfield to Stadium-Armory
Green Line Full Service: Greenbelt to Branch Avenue
Orange Line Full Service: Vienna to New Carrollton
Yellow Line Full Service: Huntington to Fort Totten

Closed stations: Shady Grove, Rockville, Twinbrook, White Flint, Grosvenor, New York Ave, Rhode Island Avenue, Brookland, Silver Spring,Takoma, Benning Road, Capitol Heights, Addison Road, Morgan Boulevard and Largo Town Center. They all have snow drifts of three to six feet on the tracks.

30 minute intervals at 35 mph? It would take forever to get to work. I wonder if metro is charging rush hour fares for this limited service since morning rush hour starts at 5:00am.

Miracle on the metro

I witnessed a miracle on the metro subway.  One day last week on my way home from work I was listening to my mp3 player.  Of course when this happens there’s always at least one person who decides to blast their music on the train despite their being a metro rule that if you’re playing music you must have earphones on. The loud music lovers either have earphones on yet you can hear their music full blast so that they will eventually lose their hearing in about ten years.  Or some idiot will get bold and play music without the earphones cause they assume that everybody on the train wants to listen to their music. Well here I am sitting in the front car of the train (cause I’m brave like that despite last weeks metro accident) and wouldn’t you know it. Some young fool is sitting in the very front of the train blasting his music for everyone to hear. I could hear his music even though I had my earphones in my ear.

By the time we got to Stadium Armory the driver of the train must have also heard his music cause he opened the door and stepped out of his little driver compartment. He let the young loud music playing idiot know that he had to either turn off the music or use his earplugs. I wanted to shout amen but I just whispered it to myself with a big smile on my face.  I’ve never seen this happen before. If you’re sitting in the front car and someone’s blasting their music most drivers don’t seem to care.  But this driver did care and I just wanted to say thank you.

Of course that was a first time I witnessed the metro driver saying something and it will probably be the last.

Metro riders describe train crash

The WaPo has another article about the red line metro crash that occurred during today’s evening rush hour.

Riders Offer One Another Tourniquets, Tenderness

By Rosalind S. Helderman and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

In the first car of the six-car Red Line train, on a sunny-day evening commute, passengers heard a message familiar to any Metrorail rider: The conductor said they were holding for a moment — there was a train ahead.

The train started moving again, picking up to moderate speed.

Then, without even the squeal of brakes as a warning, there was a crash and the feeling of being lifted up as the train hit one that was stopped.

In the moments after the crash, passengers made tourniquets out of T-shirts, struggled to pull debris off others and sought to calm the hysterical and the gravely wounded. Inside the worst-hit car, waiting on ambulances and the “jaws of life,” an Anglican priest led a group in the Lord’s Prayer. On the ground below, a civilian Pentagon employee told a wounded girl he wouldn’t accept her last wish — she was going to live.

Inside the car, there was dust and broken glass and blood. Seats had been ripped from the floor and thrown around: One man was trapped between two of them, with a leg that appeared broken. A woman was screaming, invisible, buried beneath a pile of seats.

But the most incredible thing was the floor itself. It was gone, peeled away. Passengers could look down and see the grooved metal roof of another Metro train.

“The front of the train just opened up,” said Marcie Bacchus, 30, who was among a handful of passengers in the car at the center of the deadliest accident in Metro’s 33-year history.

The crash happened about 5 p.m. on an aboveground stretch of track that runs through neighborhoods between the Fort Totten and Takoma stations. Authorities said one Red Line train rear-ended another, hitting with such force that its first car was thrown on top of the other train.

Check out the entire article here.

Deadly crash on metro’s red line

I got home today from work, turned on the tv to watch the news and saw that metro’s red line had a deadly crash around 5:00pm this afternoon. I was on the blue line during that time.

According to the local news reports, which have been on all evening, both red line trains were headed in the direction of Washington, D.C.  The first train had stopped between Takoma Park and Fort Totten stations.

The second train rear ended the first train so fiercely that the second train vaulted on top of the train that was rear ended.  Check out the picture below to see what I’m talking about.

According to one of the passengers the second train stopped due to the train in front of it that had stopped.   But apparently the driver of the second train started back up. The second train must have been going pretty fast to crash so hard into the first train.

So far six people were killed including the female driver of the second train and seventy people were injured.

What you’re seeing below is the front of the second train on top of the first train.

Red Line Crash Kills at Least Six
One Train Rear-Ends Another at Fort Totten Station in Deadliest Accident in Metro History

By Lena H. Sun, Robert Thomson and Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 22, 2009 9:23 PM

One Red Line Metrorail train rammed another from behind this evening between the Fort Totten and Takoma stations, killing at least six people and injuring 70 in what authorities called the transit system’s deadliest crash ever. The smashup was so forceful that the trailing train vaulted on top of the other.

Metro officials said the two six-car trains were headed in the same direction, toward Shady Grove, when one rear-ended the other shortly after 5 p.m. The female operator of the trailing train died.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said this evening that six people were killed but rescue personnel were still combing the wreckage. “This is the deadliest accident in the history of our Metro train transit system,” Fenty said.

Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin estimated 70 people were injured, six critically, 14 moderately and 50 with minor injuries. Authorities said rescuers were searching the trains at the scene in Northeast Washington to ensure they were evacuated.

“We’re using heavy rescue equipment to cut open the cars to get whoever’s trapped in there out,” said D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services spokesman Alan Etter.

Passengers who climbed out of the wreckage described a violent, shuddering crash.

“All I heard was a boom,” said Dylan Hooks, 17, who said he was on one of the trains. “Everybody started screaming. Somebody hit their head on the glass.” The electricity went off, he said, and passengers had to open the doors themselves to exit.

Tom Baker, 47, said he was in the first car of the trailing train. It had pulled out of Takoma Park on the way to Fort Totten, he said, when the conductor said it was holding because there was a train in front. Then the trailing train started moving again. Soon, Baker said, there was an “enormous crashing jolt.”

“You could hear all this crashing and glass breaking. I didn’t hear any brakes at all.” He said he saw the train lift into the air. Seats in his car were ripped out and tossed around. Some passengers were trapped; some screamed.

You can read the rest here at the Washington Post.  I’m sure more info will come out about this crash.

Stuck on the Orange Line

After dealing with a co-worker who thinks that getting to work on time and doing your job is some sort of crime, the last thing I needed to today was metro getting on my last nerve.  After a long day at work I got stuck on the Orange Line metro in Northern Virginia for about 30 minutes. I’m sitting on the train listening to my music, wishing Metro would get it’s act together with the switch problem they were having. After 30 minutes of sitting at various train stations I finally got to my destination so I could transfer to the Blue Line and head on home. I finally got home about 45 minutes later than I normally do. I was not a happy camper.

Metro, you suck