Wyn Delano
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) A section of the Red Line was completely shut down Friday between Van Ness and Dupont Circle stations after reports of an arcing insulator caused officials to suspend service.
Photos of the chaos flooded social media:
metro passengers dumped at Van Ness UDC… operator extremely apologetic… red line single tracking @wusa9 @wmata pic.twitter.com/E4QHTEX6Ea
— Carlton Houston (@Carlton_Houston) June 23, 2017
To add insult to injury, a similar issue also created a single tracking situation between Medical Center and Grosvenor around the same time.
The Red Line also is undergoing SafeTrack work that has closed Shady Grove and Rockville stations, adding to the chaos.
Some riders, facing the prospect of long delays decided to abandon the system altogether and walk:
The D.C. metro is so miz. Multiple fires and single tracking has led to hundreds of people forced to get off the red line and walk to work. pic.twitter.com/aIVy1eRWUV
— Jeremy Young (@YoungRJeremy) June 23, 2017
As of 10:47AM service was restored on the Red Line, but Metro cautioned that their would be “residual delays.”
All of this comes at an inopportune time for WMATA, only days before a scheduled overhaul of Metro that will change schedules, raise fares, and change closing times on June 25th.
You can read our write-up of what will change here.
Copyright 2017 WMAL.com All Rights Reserved (Photo: WMATA)
