Blue Line: Franconia-Springfield to Greenbelt?

According to an item on the WMATA front page, there is a plan to "run every other Blue Line train from Franconia-Springfield to Greenbelt via the Yellow Line bridge across the Potomac. This pattern will provide direct service from southern Fairfax County to the eastern portion of downtown. " This is offered in part as "what you will get" in exchange for the proposed fare increase. Press release here: http://www.wmata.com/about/met_news/story.cfm?ID=1540

Does anyone have any details on this? I looked quickly on their website and couldn't find any other information. This raises a number of questions, such as:
-will all Yellow Line trains still use the same route?
-will there be too little service in the Blue-Orange core or on the Blue Line in Prince Georges County? (if Tysons/Dulles ever happens this might be necessary anyway, but not yet; maybe current Orange Line service needs to be increased though, and some could run to Largo)
-will there be too many peak trains on from Mt. Vernon Square to L'Enfant Plaza if every other Blue Line train runs along with all Yellow and Green?
-is there really a lot of demand for travel from Franconia-Springfield or Van Dorn Street (only Blue-only stations south of Pentagon with no Yellow Line service) to Yellow/Green segment or beyond Mt. Vernon Square on the Green Line?

What do you all think of this proposal? I'd be very interested to see their Origin-Destination data and a complete analysis of Blue/Orange and Yellow/Green branch pairings. O-D should be quite easy for WMATA since they know exactly where each rider gets on and off (particularly as compared with New York, which only knows the "on").

That's an interesting pospect. It will be even more interesting if the recently authorised study of a potential extension of the Green Line out to Columbia ( part of studies prompted by the BRAC process and the projected increase in employment at Fort Meade) were to result in the extension actually being built. Then there would be the prospect of direct service between the Fort meade-Columbia area and Northern Virginia--- both projected to be significant employment centers. Of course this, if it ever happens, is a number of years away.

If half the Blue Line trains would go to Greenbelt, I hope that they would send an equal number of Yellow Line trains on a Huntingdon-Largo route. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I live around Farragut West and often use the Blue Line to get down to Pentagon City, Crystal City, and Franconia-Springfield. I often ride Blue Line trains to Franconia-Springfield as my other route down that way--Orange/Blue to Yellow with a change at L'Enfant Plaza--is inconvenient, a longer trip, and usually results in a ten minute wait at L'Enfant Plaza.

Also, noticing that this is listed under service improvements that will come with the fare increase, I find it funny to read some of the other service improvements that will supposedly come from a fare increase.

* Metro projects that in the Spring of 2008 the rehabilitation of 364 2000/3000-series rail cars will be complete. This will make more Metrorail cars available to serve customers. Currently, about 10 percent of these cars are out of service at any time for rehabilitation.
* In September 2007 Metro eliminated four-car trains from rush hour service, and we will continue to receive, test and deploy our fleet of 184 6000-series cars. When all of these cars are accepted, and with concurrence of the Board, we will be able to field 916 cars each day rather than the current 782 cars. When this is accomplished, one-third of rush hour trains will have eight cars and two-thirds will have six cars.
* In FY2008, Metro will purchase 100 replacement buses and 25 new buses to improve service. In FY2009, Metro will replace an additional 100 buses in its current fleet. This will improve overall reliability of our bus service.
* MetroAccess is buying 65 new vehicles to improve service and will implement door-to-door service for its customers in Spring 2008.

These sound like projects involving the government-funded capital budget and not the government and rider-funded operating budget with which the fare-increase is concerned. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Catoe and the higher-ups are Metro are flat-out lying to try to con us into buying the fare increase. Very interesting.

"protrain"
According to an item on the WMATA front page, there is a plan to "run every other Blue Line train from Franconia-Springfield to Greenbelt via the Yellow Line bridge across the Potomac. This pattern will provide direct service from southern Fairfax County to the eastern portion of downtown. " This is offered in part as "what you will get" in exchange for the proposed fare increase. Press release here: http://www.wmata.com/about/met_news/story.cfm?ID=1540

Does anyone have any details on this? I looked quickly on their website and couldn't find any other information. This raises a number of questions, such as:
-will all Yellow Line trains still use the same route?
-will there be too little service in the Blue-Orange core or on the Blue Line in Prince Georges County? (if Tysons/Dulles ever happens this might be necessary anyway, but not yet; maybe current Orange Line service needs to be increased though, and some could run to Largo)
-will there be too many peak trains on from Mt. Vernon Square to L'Enfant Plaza if every other Blue Line train runs along with all Yellow and Green?
-is there really a lot of demand for travel from Franconia-Springfield or Van Dorn Street (only Blue-only stations south of Pentagon with no Yellow Line service) to Yellow/Green segment or beyond Mt. Vernon Square on the Green Line?

A little history is in order here on the discussion of this topic.

Back in the late 1960s when the ARS (Area Regional System) plan map was finalized the Yellow line was to run between Springfield/Franconia and Greenbelt, the Blue line was to run between Addison Road and Huntington. When the C Route opened south of National Airport on 12 17 1983 service to Huntington ran between U Street and Huntington as the Yellow line, Blue line service continued terminated in pocket track at National Airport. The Blue line was extended south of National Airport when Van Dorn Street opened on 06 15 1991

The reasoning for the swap of colors to Huntington was the fact that WMATA didn't have enough rolling stock in the fleet to extend the Blue line to Huntington. WMATA had the extension ready to open and they wanted to open it but because of the lack of rolling stock they couldn't extend it as the Blue line. At the time when Huntington opened the first of the 2k Breda's were just arriving on the property. None of 2k cars had passed expectence testing and were not yet available for revenue service. There was even talk of delaying the opening until after sufficient number of the 2k car had passed expectence testing. WMATA came up with the idea of redeploying the 1k cars to allow for the opening to Huntington.

The delivery of the 2k cars was as I recall was somewhere around 18 to 24 months behind schedule because of a labor dispute at Westinghouse and a mechanical malfunction in the plant producing the car bodies.

Prior to the opening south of National Airport 8 car trains were regularly seen operated in the system. After the opening to Huntington 8 car trains disappeared from the system.

WMATA has had a shortage of rolling stock sense December of 1993. It was only until resonantly that the rolling stock shortage has been less of a problem.

As to the issue of routing selected Blue line trains across the Charles R. Fenwick Bridge and up the mid City E and F routes some of that is explained in the 10-Year Capital Improvement Program (2.55 MB PDF)

What do you all think of this proposal?

I think WMATA looked at the map from the late 1960s and found that it was time to resurrect some of routings on that map onto today’s map.

I'd be very interested to see their Origin-Destination data and a complete analysis of Blue/Orange and Yellow/Green branch pairings. O-D should be quite easy for WMATA since they know exactly where each rider gets on and off (particularly as compared with New York, which only knows the "on").

You might be interested in knowing that the codes for routing train and displaying destinations in the sign boxes have 3 colors (Blue, Yellow and Green) for Franconia-Springfield, Huntington, Mount Vernon Square and Greenbelt, 2 colors (Blue and Orange) for Largo and New Carrollton. Code 34 is Dulles Airport, code 93 Dulles Yard. Codes 51-53, 57, 59, 61-64, 68-70 are unassigned, some of those codes will likely be assigned to trains operating between Silver line terminals (VA-722 Ashburn, Wiehle Avenue, Tysons West Spring Hill Road, Tysons East West Park, Stadium-Armory, Largo and New Carrollton.

I think they probably didn't switch the Yellow Line to F/S as originally planned once that station opened because more riders wanted the direct ride to Farragut West. It is unclear to me why this change might happen now, seeing as the opening of the Dulles Line is still a ways off.

"WMATAGMOAGH"
I think they probably didn't switch the Yellow Line to F/S as originally planned once that station opened because more riders wanted the direct ride to Farragut West.

As far as I know there was never was any plans to switch it back to the original configuration in the future.

It is unclear to me why this change might happen now, seeing as the opening of the Dulles Line is still a ways off.

More efficient utilization of the rolling stock. Make more slots available on the Blue Orange trunk east of Rosslyn that are coming from Vienna.

I regularly see complaints in the Dr. Gridlock Column in the Washington Post about crowding on the Orange line west of Rosslyn.

Sand Box John wrote:"WMATAGMOAGH"
I think they probably didn't switch the Yellow Line to F/S as originally planned once that station opened because more riders wanted the direct ride to Farragut West.

As far as I know there was never was any plans to switch it back to the original configuration in the future.

It is unclear to me why this change might happen now, seeing as the opening of the Dulles Line is still a ways off.

More efficient utilization of the rolling stock. Make more slots available on the Blue Orange trunk east of Rosslyn that are coming from Vienna.

I regularly see complaints in the Dr. Gridlock Column in the Washington Post about crowding on the Orange line west of Rosslyn.

Remember how they kept F/S on the maps yellow until Van Dorn opened? It was to indicate the lines would swap someday. I own a map somewhere that states that the Yellow Line would operate to Van Dorn Street once that station opened, and the Blue Line would be extended to Huntington.