The Apocalypse is Nigh

In other words, the metro is down.

An entire city crumbles beneath the weight of delays

Never have I ever been so happy to be injured.  My broken toe pretty much requires me to take cabs and cars everywhere, since I can't navigate the stations.  Or really, just because I'm not strong enough to get up the stairs to reach the platform and to walk the block from the metro to work when I arrive.


On Monday, there was a fire in the metro.  Yet.  Another.  Fire.

To be fair, no one is surprised that the metro catches fire.  We've just accepted that it's a crappy form of transit and that things are going to go wrong.  However, things going wrong is usually limited to escalators grinding to a halt and Dupont's entrance catching fire.


This time was different though.  There was definitely smoke, and it seemed to be kinda similar to an incident last year where some lady unfortunately died due to smoke inhalation in the metro.  So the metro on Monday was probably a madhouse over at administration HQ.

So what's the plan?  SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN!


Granted, this makes perfect sense.  There was an incident that mirrored another fatal incident on the metro rail system.  The metro is conducting and audit of all their equipment to make sure everything is ok and to reevaluate how the metro is running.  It makes sense to conduct this when riders are off the lines so that, if something else does go wrong, no one gets hurt.


Thus, the entire metro rail system ground to a halt starting at midnight.  Buses are still running, and Uber is kindly capping their rate spike, but the metro rail itself is closed.


 Now we get to me, happy Caitie, who has completely missed the pandemonium this morning and just sailed into work literally 45 min early because traffic was not nearly as bad as I expected.  But then again, I essentially work an afternoon shift.  Nothing is ever jam packed when I go to work, even when the metro is running.  But for everyone else, this meant massive problems.


Think on the scale of plane-is-overbooked-could-you-switch sized problems.


People were livid.  The roads were clogged with cars as far as the eye could see.  Bus stops were crammed with commuters, only to find out that the bus they've been waiting 45 min for is so full no one can get on.  And, though it is capped, Uber is still spiking its rate due to their surge pricing.  The looks on the streets are all the same.

And to make everything better, when they closed shop to do their audit of the metro system there was the idea that if something was found, the metro could be closed even longer.


Great.  Just great.

Have a super day!  Just not with us