Here’s some information about Washington, D.C.’s subway system, generally called the “Metro.” The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority operates Metrorail, the second busiest rail system in the United States, and oversees the country’s sixth largest bus system.
Facts:
There are currently 91 Metro stations.
The rail and bus system serves a population of four million passengers.
The routes include trips from Washington to Maryland (Montgomery and Prince George’s counties) and Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun counties, and the towns of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church).
Ridership on the rail system in 2015 totaled approximately 206,396,000 trips; for the bus system, the total was approximately 131,000,000 trips.
As of 2015, Metrorail averages more than 700,000 riders per day.
The Metrorail includes six train lines and covers 118 miles.
Metrobus has 11,129 bus stops and 288 routes on 174 lines.
Timeline:
February 20, 1967 – The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is created.
December 9, 1969 – Construction on the Metrorail begins.
1973 – Four bus systems are acquired.
March 27, 1976 – The first portion of the Metrorail system opens to the public.
January 13, 1982 – Subway train derails during afternoon rush hour near the Federal Triangle on the Orange line, three dead, 25 injured.
January 13, 2001 – The final portion of Metrorail is completed.
2004 – Three new subway stations open, two on the Blue line and one on the Red line.
June 22, 2009 – Two subway cars collide on the Red Line in Washington during afternoon rush hour, seven dead, more than 70 injured.
July 26, 2014 – The Silver Line officially opens, adding an additional 11.7-miles to Washington’s Metro.
January 12, 2015 – One person is killed and more than 80 others are hospitalized after a train station at L’Enfant Plaza fills with smoke. The smoke condition was caused by an “electrical arcing accident” on the third rail, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The incident prompts the Federal Transit Administration to begin work on a report identifying Metrorail safety issues.
June 17, 2015 – The FTA releases its report, which identifies numerous hazards throughout the Metrorail system. The problems include an understaffed control center, employees using personal cellphones while on duty and a poor radio communications network.
March 14, 2016 – An electrical fire in a Metro tunnel causes the shutdown of the Orange, Silver and Blue lines.
March 16, 2016 – The entire Metrorail system is shut down for safety inspections. The closure lasts from midnight on March 15 to 5 a.m. on March 17.
May 3, 2016 – The National Transportation and Safety Board releases their report on the fatal Metrorail accident in January. According to the report, “the short circuit in the January 2015 accident resulted from WMATA’s failure to follow its procedures for washing tunnels and constructing power cable connector assemblies. NTSB investigators said if WMATA had followed its standard operating procedures, stopping all trains at the first report of smoke, the accident train would not have been trapped in the smoke-filled tunnel.”