Your Metro Minute Expanded Edition
May 10, 2023: Make the Switch to SmarTrip in Wallet
This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition - a video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance.
When running for the train, you can easily forget your keys, your bag, or even your lunch. But one thing you'll likely never forget is your phone. Now, with SmarTrip in Wallet, you'll be able to take advantage of your mobile phone's capabilities to make your Metro commute even easier. SmarTrip in Wallet is our contactless way to add your SmarTrip® card to your mobile device's wallet app, making for a fast, easy, and accessible way to pay.
Whether you have an iPhone with Apple Wallet or an Android phone using Google Wallet, you'll be able to pay for Metrorail, Metrobus, parking at a Metro operated lot or garage and our regional partners like ART or DASH bus. Basically, wherever SmarTrip is accepted.
An awesome advantage of adding SmarTrip to your mobile device is that it keeps all your travel cards in one place. Instead of fumbling around for your wallet or digging through bags to find your SmarTrip card, you'll be able to smoothly manage your purchases, simply tapping your phone to go! Just hold the back of your phone two inches above the reader. Also, for iPhone users your phone doesn't have to be awake, and for Android users, while the phone has to be awake, you don't need to open your Wallet.
With SmarTrip in Wallet, you can even use contactless mobile payments on your smartphone and watch, making managing your fare funds an ease - they go straight to your wallet within seconds! SmarTrip in Wallet is a perfect and convenient solution for anyone. Bonus points for choosing the environmentally friendly option to help the planet.
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April 26, 2023: Chilling Our Underground Metrorail Stations
This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition--a weekly video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance. Are you excited for summer? If you’re dreading the excruciating summer heat, Metro may be a “cooler” option for you to get around. Within our underground stations, we have a cooling system that helps reduce the temperature of the station to help provide a more comfortable experience to customers.
There are a lot of ways our 50 underground stations heat up. One is simply the outside temperature - the warmer it is the warmer the station will feel. Two, as the train rushes into the station, it pushes the warm around, creating a swirl of hot air throughout the station every couple of minutes. Third, being underground itself traps in the heat.
To help keep our underground stations cool, we are one of the few unique transit systems to have a system of chillers, cooling air from the outside and to help lower the temperature inside. This cooling system provides cooling for two stations and is often located at a facility midway between each station.
The cooling system is made up of many pieces - chillers, cooling towers, fans, and pumps - all designed to work together to reduce the temperature of the air from the outside and circulate it within the platform and mezzanine areas through an array of vents throughout the stations including pillars and pylons.
This system is crucial to helping create a more enjoyable experience for anyone waiting for a train. Stay cool and comfortable while you keep it chill riding with us.
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April 12, 2023: Travel Alternatives during maintenance work
This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition--a weekly video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance.
As we often talk about, Metro is regularly rebuilding through preventive maintenance to maintain a high-level of safety and reliability. While maintenance is being performed, it may be necessary to shutdown portions of the Metrorail system. We know this causes an inconvenience to customers who rely on Metrorail to get around.
It is important to provide travel alternatives for customers, such as free local and express shuttle bus service to the closed stations.
It’s just like chess. The key to success is having a good strategy and being able to adapt to changing circumstances as they arise.
We want customers to not only follow our social media accounts but to check out Status & Alerts section of wmata.com to see the latest service changes to Metrorail and Metrobus. If your travel is impacted, use our Trip Planner. Our Trip Planner gets updated every week with the latest changes coming for the weekend or longer-term shutdowns for major construction.
We want to maintain a reliable and advanced Metro system for years to come.
Happy customers, happy Metro. 😊
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April 5, 2023: How to Find Out about Service Alerts
This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition--a weekly video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance.
Imagine leaving your house and finding out your favorite store is all out of bagels … now what will you drink your morning coffee with? Oof! Too bad the store didn’t alert you beforehand, eh?
Here at Metro, you will never have to leave your house without getting an update from us should there be a service interruption. With our real-time alerts (emails, text messages, and social media channels), knowing what’s happening will hopefully make your journey much more bearable – and not lead you to guess what’s going on and what changes you need to make.
Here are four ways to figure out what’s happening before and during your travel:
- Subscribe to alerts: Through MetroAlerts, a free alert service, we notify you can of Metro service disruptions via email or text. You can get MetroAlerts sent to your computer, smartphone, or cell phone that receives data.
- Social media: Our Twitter accounts @Metrorailinfo and @Metrobusinfo on real-time updates. Our Customer Care team is also available seven days a week to tweet back and answer any questions you have.
- Station information: Multiple digital displays or paper posters get updated regularly as service changes, and are effortless to read.
- wmata.com/alerts: This section provides you with the latest service information as well as any planned changes.
We encourage you to take advantage of these ways to get quick, easy, and accessible information at your fingertips.
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This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition--a weekly video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance.
The one word our customers probably never want to hear is shutdown. When it comes to maintenance work, we do our best to avoid shutting down stations, but there are times when it's the best option to keep the system in a state of good repair.
Think of it like getting a good night's rest. Having a good quality sleep will allow your body time to reboot itself. You'll feel refreshed or rejuvenated, ready to tackle the day. Our Metrorail system works the same way. Every night, the system closes to perform maintenance and inspections. This keeps our pace of repairing and upgrading.
However, sometimes you may need more than 'one' good night's rest to function properly -- just like Metrorail. Sometimes repairs and upgrades require several days, weeks, to even months to get us to a state-of-good-repair.
Shutdowns are easier for several reasons. One reason is that it allows the maintenance work to be completed quickly with fewer disruptions. Upgrades that may take weeks overnight can take days when our teams are left with a large number of uninterrupted hours to work. The second reason for a shutdown is the type of work we're doing. If you want to learn about the different types of maintenance work, you can watch Your Metro Minute from March 22: Why We Do Maintenance Work.
But to you, "how does this impact my travel?" We want to keep you moving as quickly and safely as possible...but we need to be sure we're providing safe and reliable service. Shuttle buses are the usual way we bridge the gap of train service. Hop off a train, and hop on a bus that will get you to the stations without train service. But Metrobus may be a better option - closer, more direct - than switching from train to bus (sometimes to train again).
Want to plan ahead? Check out our upcoming shutdowns on the status and alerts page.
Of course, don't forget to share this video and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition--a weekly video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance.
Have you ever waited too long to install updates on your phone? Apps crash, and things may slow down. Installing updates can help fix bugs and keep your applications running smoothly. It's the same for our Metro system. That's why do regular maintenance work.
Customers may think we are only patching up our system. While it's true that we do repairs, let's look at the big picture: we perform regular maintenance as a long-term fixes for rebuilding our system.
Do you feel like we're regularly doing maintenance? We are.
We're fixing everything from grout pad renewal to leak mitigation and more to keep the system safe and running smoothly. We want to keep our Metro system in the best condition possible to deliver good service to our customers.
Here are five common types of maintenance work:
• Grout pad renewal: Pieces of concrete that elevate the tracks and keep them in place. This makes for a smoother ride.
• Switch replacement: Where trains can move from one track to another. It helps the train get to where it needs to go. Maintaining it prevents delays.
• Power maintenance: Longer trains (8-car) use more power. Power maintenance provides electricity for trains and the station systems, including lighting, escalators, and fare machines.
• Radio and fiber-optic upgrades: Upgrading our system keeps your cellular service connected, two-way communications for Operations or Metro Transit Police active.
• Leak mitigation: clean up and seal any water leaks within the system.
You can check out a look at upcoming maintenance work by visiting the status and alerts page.
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This is Your Metro Minute, the expanded edition--a weekly video and blog series for our Metro customers. Want to learn more about our transit system? Now's your chance.
If you've spent some time using our rail system, you will hear the words single tracking, and you may have wondered, what does this even mean? Single tracking may also be puzzling for our new customers like tourists. And no, single tracking is not a new dating app from Metro; we've seen this floating around on social. Single tracking is just when we have our trains share one track. For you, it means you should look out for your train on one side of the platform.
We talked to one of our employees to recall a time they experienced single tracking. They told us, "I remember my first time hearing single tracking. I was leaving the office late from L'Enfant Plaza after a long night, and I heard an announcement while on the train say, 'trains will be single tracking from Anacostia to Southern Avenue, and we are going to hold here a few minutes.' Most people didn't seem fazed, and I saw a few faces either look frustrated or unbothered. I thought, there goes making it to meet up with a friend on time since my commute may take an additional five to seven minutes."
Let's break down single tracking even further for you. We use two tracks to keep you moving to your destination. When we have to do maintenance work such as grout pad renewal, our first thought is how to work effectively and provide minimal impact to our customers. Single tracking is one option because we usually do it when less people are traveling, like on weekends and weeknights after 9 pm.
During single tracking, maintenance work happens on one track, and on the second track, trains can keep moving. In order for trains to share the same track, we usually increase the time between trains in each direction. For example, if the Green Line runs every 8 minutes, with single tracking it may run every 16 minutes. This keeps trains spaced and avoids someone having to wait for the other train to pass. The longer the distance trains share the same track, the more minutes apart they need to be.
We challenge you to ask someone you know if they know what single tracking means. Share this video, and subscribe to MetroAlerts at wmata.com/metroalerts.