Metro trains were running behind schedule Thursday afternoon despite relatively few riders, clear weather conditions and no announced delays.
A sample of Orange, Blue and Red line trains lagged between four and 12 minutes behind Metro’s published travel times.
“I take those schedules with a grain of salt,” said Jeremy Slezak, 29, of Columbia Heights.
Slezak said his afternoon commute was typically faster than riding the train during morning or evening rush hours, but in either case, he never relied on Metro’s schedule.
A pair of Red Line trains traveling between the Shady Grove and Metro Center stations took an average of eight minutes longer to make their trips than scheduled.
“Service is terrible, especially the Red Line,” said 62-year-old Mary Jones, a daily Metrorail rider. “Trains are late, and it’s not once in a while. It’s all the time.”
Two Orange Line trains traveling between the Rosslyn and Vienna stations ran four minutes behind, and a scheduled 15-minute ride on the Blue Line from Stadium-Armory to McPherson Square took 21 minutes.
“It’s more than inefficiency,” said Sally Morris, 50, a resident of the District’s Palisades neighborhood. “There’s something fundamentally wrong with the Metro.”
