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Broken: DC Metro Smart Cards, Escalators

SmarTrip Card

Today, I noticed my SmarTrip card was running low as I exited the Metro. Not wanting to find myself in the unfortunate situation where I try to put more money on later this afternoon after work, but the machine doesn’t go fast enough and I listen as my train pulls into the station and pulls away (this has happened), I decided to put more money on before I left the station for work.

I walked up to the machine and pressed the button to pay with credit. I swiped my card and two minutes later, the computerized voice politely informed me that the transaction had been canceled. I figured there was a problem with that transaction and it hadn’t gone through for whatever reason, so I decided to try again. Three more minutes later – same result.

Now, I’m worried that something is wrong with my card, so I decide to try another. Three minutes later, same result.

Using my superior powers of deductive reasoning, I calculated that something was wrong with the particular machine I was using, so I decided to switch to another. At the next machine, I tried again, and sure enough a few minutes later – transaction canceled.

As the final transaction was canceled, I overheard the machine next to me tell the guy there the same thing. He whipped out a $20 bill and put cash on his card. I refused to do the same and decided to head to see the station manager to inform her of the problem with the machines. After picking her nose and ignoring me for two minutes, she casually looked over as if I was interrupting her “busy” day.

SmarTrip Machine

I politely – believe it or not, you do catch more flies with honey after all – informed her about the problems to which she replied, “oh, OK,” very nonchalantly. She didn’t make any calls, write anything down, or seem the least bit interested that one of the major payment mechanisms at a very busy station wasn’t functioning properly.

I don’t think there are words in the English language that adequately convey the rage I felt over this. I know it seems like a trivial incident, but when you ride the DC Metro every day and see stuff like this day in and day out, it adds up.

The DC Metro is always increasing fares to cover “revenue shortfalls” as if it is being operated as some sort of for-profit business. Their 08 budget shows that they plan to derive 26% of their operating funds from fares.

Show me one for-profit business that would survive more than two days if their payment systems weren’t accepting one of their two major payment methods.

You can’t show me one – know why? Because any business that moronic isn’t in business anymore. If a payment system goes down in a retail store, you had better believe that managers will be all over it, making phone calls every five minutes until it is fixed.

But at DC Metro, we get a disinterested, “oh, OK”.

No. Not OK!

You clowns cost me 15 minutes of my day this morning. Do you know what my hourly billing rate is? I guarantee that it is greater than the $20 I wanted to put on your stupid SmarTrip card.

Who will compensate me for the lost time later this afternoon when I miss my train because your stupid machine doesn’t go fast enough? I actually believe that the machines still won’t be working this afternoon, and I will find myself stranded unless I can locate an ATM, which would be super-awesome.

And how many days is the escalator going to be out? How hard is it to keep an escalator running when the whole system is closed for five hours every day?

Image: flickr

Look at this list of DC Metro escalators that are inoperable. This is unsatisfactory. For comparison - how many times have you ever seen an escalator inoperable at a mall?

Those escalators are just as heavily trafficked, and I never recall seeing it. I see an escalator outage on DC Metro almost daily. What is the problem?

Before you start to say “well the DC metro has way more escalators than any mall…” let me tell you how bogus that argument is. The mall doesn’t have crews dedicated solely to fixing escalators, but if one breaks, you bet your sweet ass they’ll get it fixed, pronto. DC Metro has entire crews of maintenance people to work on these things, and they are broken all the time. Who is the ringleader of this circus?

I have never in my life advocated for the violent overthrow of the US government, but I’m seriously considering a limited violent overthrow of the DC Metro. This is idiotic.

DC Metro needs new leadership, and the first order of business needs to be to establish an “ass-kicking strike force”. It would be staffed by Army and Marine combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with very low tolerance for bureaucratic BS. Their sole mission in life would be to randomly pop in on stations throughout the day, find all the problems and kick the ass of everyone up the chain who is responsible. They would be empowered to fire on the spot for severe infractions like stranding old ladies on the escalator at Rosslyn.

Let the Derkins reign of terror commence!