TWINBROOK 鈥� On the final day of a major in Prince George鈥檚 County and Northeast Washington, and ahead of a nine-day , regional leaders celebrated upcoming changes to Metro track work disruptions and promised better service in the future.
June 25 鈥渨ill be a new day for us in terms of schedules and fares and other things,鈥� General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said. 鈥溾�� that will be a different type of commute that day, [and] particularly the 26th. Give yourself a little bit more time as we work through some of the startup period of that, but I鈥檓 sure it will go well.鈥�
Metro , while also and to every eight minutes at the end of each line.
Wiedefeld stood with regional leaders Thursday warning riders of the , which will make Twinbrook the northwestern end of the line rather than Shady Grove. After that round-the-clock work zone, weekend riders are scheduled to , with at least one work zone expected to affect each line nearly every weekend for the foreseeable future.
Metro has also already announced over the next year, even as its leaders celebrate what the agency calls the 鈥渆nd of SafeTrack.鈥�
鈥淭his is not the beginning of the end; this is the end of the beginning,鈥� Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner said.
D.C. Councilmember and Metro Board Chair Jack Evans joked that Berliner stole his line, but said 13 months of work under Metro鈥檚 initial rush-hour surge program is something to celebrate.
鈥淔or an organization that people roundly criticized as not being able to do anything 鈥� this is an enormous achievement,鈥� Evans said. 鈥淲e have now corrected the worst parts of Metro; we鈥檝e saved the patient from dying, but the patient is still pretty sick. We have a lot more work to do.鈥�
While the track-work surges focused on only about one-fifth of the system, and were not able to address in all of those areas, Wiedefeld said the rest of the system, including the heavily-trafficked downtown core, is not in as urgent need of repair.
鈥淭he remainder of the system is in good shape; it needs a lot of work, but from a safety standpoint, if there were safety issues we would get in there immediately,鈥� Wiedefeld said.
