With Metro ridership continuing to grow at a record pace — Tuesday had the sixth-highest ridership in the system’s history — congestion relief can’t come soon enough.
But Metro Interim General Manager Dan Tangherlini said plans to introduce up to 100 new railcars into the system by December are being delayed because of manufacturing problems. Metro officials said they now expect to have about 50 by the end of the year.
“We promised to have a number of eight-car trains moving through the system by December,” Tangherlini said. “But we’re not going to accept bad trains. We’re not going to let that schedule force us into bad decisions.”
Tangherlini and other Metro officials met with train manufacturer Alstom Transportation Inc. in New York Wednesday to find solutions.
Alstom is being paid $323 million to build 184 new 6000 series railcars, which include new handrail designs meant to ease overcrowding. Alstom is also being paid $382 million to overhaul all 364 of the 4000 series cars, originally built in the 1980s. In both cases, a faulty part is causing delays in bringing the trains back into the system.
Tangherlini said because there are only a handful of companies that build or overhaul railcars, “everyone who has a railcar system is in a similar situation.”
“I’m deep into this problem,” Tangherlini said. “And I expect to have a course of action ready to present to the board by the first week in July.”
Despite setbacks, Metro continues to be one of the most efficient systems in the country, officials said. Nearly 98 percent of trains — 653,000 out of 670,000 trips a day — arrive on time and without incident on an average weekday, officials said.
