Metro is trying to revamp its Gallery Place-Chinatown station to alleviate dangerous crowding at the third-busiest station in the system. The agency is considering getting rid of the moat along the edge of the platform to make more room for riders, cut across a corner to improve flow or even create a walkway above the tracks, according to the agency’s top planners.
“The goal is to make it easier for passengers to get into and out of the station and transfer between the lines,” Nat Bottigheimer, Metro assistant general manager of planning and joint development, said Thursday.
The 35-year-old Metrorail system hasn’t reached its limit, but it is pinched in some areas. Parking lots fill up at end-of-the-line stations first thing in the morning, causing ridership to peak early each morning. The system can run only so many eight-car trains since it doesn’t have enough power to run all trains at that length at one time.
| Metro upgrades SmarTrip system |
| Metro riders now can add money to their SmarTrip cards online with a credit card, skipping the wait at fare vending machines. |
| After years of delay, the system is ready for all SmarTrip users, Metro General Manager Richard Sarles said Thursday. |
| The change means that riders no longer need to wait in line at station vending machines or in buses to add money to their plastic farecards. They can load the money at home, and the value will be reloaded when they pass through the fare gates or use their card on a bus. |
| But SmartBenefits users still must use the vending machines to get their monthly transit benefit. |
| And riders also will need to plan ahead when uploading more money as it takes time for the credit card transactions to go through to the SmarTrip cards. On the rail system, riders should expect to wait one business day after loading the money online. But on bus, it could take as many as three business days. |
| In the future, the system will allow riders to automatically add more money to their cards whenever the balance drops to set levels. And Metro eventually hopes to let riders pay with credit cards, cell phones or even federal ID cards. – Kytja Weir |
And all of Metro’s major transfer points are dealing with congestion. But the problem is especially bad at Gallery Place, where the Yellow, Green and Red lines converge.
Unlike the other transfer stations, which are configured in a plus-sign with arms branching out to each side, the Gallery Place station is shaped like a T, creating more of a bottleneck. Riders have to walk down the Red Line platform to board six-car trains, causing clumping at the rear cars as riders exit and board. Then they bump into each other at the intersection when transferring.
The Red Line side platforms are narrower than most other transfer platforms to fit between nearby historic buildings such as the National Portrait Gallery.
Earlier this summer, Metro removed several benches and a trash can to provide more room. Now they are studying more substantial ways to free up space.
The problem is that an average 26,000 riders per day board trains at the station, a boom from the average 6,500 boardings that occurred there in 1997. That’s the year that the Verizon Center opened, spurring redevelopment of downtown D.C. and bringing more people to the center of the city for special events. Even more growth is expected as the mixed-use CenterCityDC project fills the spot of the old convention center nearby.
All those riders in a tight space can lead to major crowding — and the potential for accidents.
In April, a couple in their 70s fell onto the Red Line tracks while the station was filled with passengers. Other riders jumped into the tracks and pulled them to safety.
A 68-year-old woman visiting from Nashville fell onto the tracks there amid the crowds during President Obama’s 2009 inauguration. A visiting police officer saved her from an oncoming train by tucking her into the crawl space below the platform.
