The Washington, D.C. rapid transit system was restored to full capacity Sunday, meaning it now runs as fast as a moped instead of a riding mower. The “Metrorail” had undergone significant repairs since last June, creating service disruptions on multiple train lines week after week. Sometimes this manifested in “single-tracking,” which is analogous to closing one side of a road and a traffic cop on the other twirling his sign between SLOW and STOP. Sometimes entire stations were shut down, and not just at the ends of lines—in my neck of the concrete jungle, trains were stopped repeatedly at Reagan National Airport, smack in the middle of the yellow line, where riders could then board buses to continue their trips.
This, as they say, is life, but for a few things. People move quickly in the nation’s capital. There are Craigslist ads for housing that ask roommates to “be able to thrive in a fast-paced environment.” So Washingtonians are miserable as it is with the Metro’s existing deficiencies: its overcrowded subways, increased wait times, stop-and-go transit, stalled escalators, malfunctioning fare gates, and obnoxious prices. Although this so-called “SafeTrack” campaign was necessary, it made commutes even worse.
In recognition of the public’s patience, what appeared to be a representative emailed a few words of thanks to Metro pass holders on Thursday. But the message resembled spam. Had it included a link, it would’ve resembled a phishing campaign. Had the link been to “wmata.com,” I would’ve notified the authorities immediately.
The email:
A few comments about this.
First: The sender’s name. Oh my word. I mean acronym. “WMATA GM/CEO.” I get that the nation’s capital is all about referring to people by their informal titles, like “POTUS,” “SECDEF,” and “CROOKED HILLARY,” but can we not throw in so many consonants and vowels that I feel like I’m reciting Gwen Stefani lyrics in my head?
Second: The sender’s email. This passes muster. I think. It has familiar terms, like “smarttrip” and “wmata.” But I searched my Inbox—all 700 terabytes of it—and I didn’t encounter one thing from “[email protected].” I can hear Kanye singing Why are you so paranoid? in my head. But you never know. I mean, the Russians.
Third: That little red lock icon under the WMATA. What the hell is that thing? Red connotes danger. I Googled this, and it seems to mean that the sender sent something unencrypted. So reads Google’s “Email encryption in transit” section. “If you received a message with the red lock icon and the message contained particularly sensitive content, let the sender know and they can contact their email service provider.”
Even though there was nothing sensitive about this email beyond my feelings, I informed WMATA by phone, in case this was a matter that had cropped up in other messages. Besides, I was growing skeptical enough about the text that a phone call to confirm it was really WMATA that sent this thing was in order.
I provided all the details to someone who answered the Metro media line, earnestly telling him that lots of people on Twitter were referring to the email as spam-like. I asked him if he could say WMATA was responsible for the note’s contents and distribution. “I have no information on that,” he told me.
Fourth: So did WMATA really send this thing, or what?
Fifth: Mama always told me to beware of suspicious text in the body of an email. (“Mama” in this instance is a class I’m taking right now about computer security.) Two items jumped out: That the email was unsigned and ended instead with the unnecessarily capitalized “Thank You!” Suspicious appearances aside, it’s just a nice touch to be grammatical in official correspondence and leave Twitter to random uppercase letters, not to mention misspellings and all the exclamation points.
Conclusion: I give the email a half-chameleon out of four. It seems legit. Just a touch sloppy. And I appreciate someone taking the time to send an encouraging note to riders. I’d be inclined to send one to the guys who always get overlooked in matters of inconvenience like this: the ones who are actually in the tunnels. They’re not making policy. They’re just doing their job, ultimately to my benefit and, hopefully, safety. And it doesn’t go without notice. Unlike the fare increases.
