Metro officials are preparing to begin a massive, four-year rehabilitation of the Red Line that would cause delays for riders on the system’s busiest rail line.
If approved, the effort to fix or replace the aging infrastructure on Metro’s oldest line would mean single-tracking trains along one stretch at a time on weekends and after the evening rush hour on weekdays so contractors can work on the track.
It also would mean nighttime and weekend delays in those areas at a time when Metro ridership is smashing record after record.
Metro is planning to undertake similar work on the Orange and Green lines in coming years.
The maintenance schedule would signal two major shifts in policy for the transit agency: an end to the practice of limiting weekday track work to the hours when the system is closed, and a new focus on completing all maintenance along one stretch of rail instead of scattering projects throughout the system.
“By doing this, we’re able to give the contractors a productive work period of between six and eight hours,” Metro capital projects chief Dave Couch said. “It’s a tremendous increase in productivity.
“It also lets us focus our scarce resources in one area and get all the work accomplished in one section,” Couch added.
Under Metro’s current policy, contractors have less than three hours to set up, work and break down projects while the rail system is shut down for the night.
The agency has been permitting its in-house staff to conduct weekend work to replace track switches at some stations — an effort that has caused lengthy delays for weekend riders along several lines this year.
Couch said the rehabilitation work would pause during nights when major events are scheduled, such as Washington Nationals games and events at the Verizon Center or at other Red Line locations.
Extensive rehabilitation projects are not optional for Metro. As the system passes its 32nd birthday, officials are scrambling to fund urgently needed repairs to its crumbling station platforms and aging ventilation systems, and to keep its rails in good working order.
The Red Line project will include the oldest section between the Dupont Circle and Silver Spring stations and will be broken into four 12-to-15-month phases beginning in April, according to plans.
It could be followed by four additional years of work on the remaining part of the line if the transit agency finds the money for it.
A six-year project to rehabilitate the Orange Line will begin in 2010 and a three-year one for the Green Line starts in 2011, with work on the Yellow and Blue lines following.
Officials said they hoped to minimize delays by limiting the work to a section of track that lies directly between two track crossovers, which would allow trains to travel on a single track over that section and then return to normal service quickly, Couch said.
On sections where crossovers lie only two close stations apart, such as at the Judiciary Square and New York Avenue stations, riders might not experience any significant delays during evening single-tracking because trains already run 12 minutes apart after rush hour and can bridge that section before a train traveling in the opposite direction arrives, he said.
But in areas where crossovers lie farther apart, such as between Takoma and Fort Totten on the Red Line or between the Pentagon and Braddock Road on the Blue and Yellow lines, delays are likely.
Metro’s board of directors is scheduled to vote on the rehabilitation plan Thursday.
