Metro riders who use the Farragut North stop will win a reprieve — albeit brief — from the construction zone that has taken over their station for more than two years.
The transit agency plans to put all scheduled work on hold at the station in February when it closes one entrance of the nearby Dupont Circle stop for escalator replacements. Consider it Farragut North riders’ gain for Dupont Circle riders’ pain.
But the break won’t last. The agency still has a long list of problems to fix, including shoring up giant leaky water and sewer mains that are cracking the station. So the barricades and downed escalators will return to the Farragut station within about 10 months.
“As challenging and incremental as this is, it’s a whole lot better than having a water main burst on the Red Line,” Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said.
In the past two years, Farragut North has suffered a scourge of unrelated plagues: unreliable escalators, asbestos, construction damage from an above-ground road project and leaks from the massive water main running right through the station.
Riders have been left to navigate around construction equipment on narrowed platforms, then have to wait in line to hike up stopped escalators in the morning rush. Their view amid the wait: exposed concrete ceilings.
The biggest problem is the water and sewer mains that give crucial water to much of downtown. Unfortunately, those crucial lines also sit on the Red Line, which provides equally crucial transportation to much of downtown.
When that station was constructed, Metro built around the existing municipal utilities, according to Metro officials. The massive water main and sewer pipe now run perpendicularly through the station in between the platform ceiling and the mezzanine. But the lines have been causing water damage, through either leaks or condensation.
Metro’s Deputy General Manager Dave Kubicek warned last week the station could be shut down entirely if it’s not fixed.
The problems came to light in Nov. 2009 when a worker spotted a dislodged tile in the platform ceiling. Crews then found large cracks in the concrete, including one that stretched 15-feet by 4-feet and another that extended over the subway tracks.
At the time, Metro officials said they didn’t know how long the repairs would take but estimated two weeks. Two years later, the repairs are still under way.
Metro board member Tom Downs called it a “significant failure” of the building process and wants whoever is liable to pay for what will likely be a costly fix.
“As critical a piece of infrastructure, with the main and the subway, you’d expect it have a life or more than 30 years,” Downs said.
Separately, in November 2010, a piece of concrete fell through the tunnel ceiling onto the platform, when construction crews pierced the membrane of the tunnel while doing road work on Connecticut Avenue above the station. Work to fix that damage has not yet begun, Stessel said.
Then asbestos was found in the station last spring, The Washington Examiner first reported in March, in unrelated work on ducts in mechanical rooms, under platforms and above suspended ceilings. The remediation work was finished within the last few months, Stessel said.
In addition, the agency has been repairing aging escalators. But it still has four more platform escalators to rehabilitate, Stessel said, having finished the third one just before Thanksgiving.
