Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Mini Makeovers

Metro announced today (twice in the same release! ha! h/t dcvoterboy) that it would be giving mini and major makeovers to 42 stations as part of a $7.5 million station enhancement program.

Included in the makeover is "the cleaning of masonry surfaces, painting interior surfaces, repairing interior masonry surfaces, painting exterior surfaces, fabricating, installing or repairing signs, refinishing bus and station platform shelter benches and spot finishing bronze surfaces such as railings. A major station enhancement includes all responsibilities under a mini enhancement but also includes pressure washing the ceilings and walls, and painting interior surfaces."

Does your station need it?

1. Medical Center (major)
2. Bethesda
3. Wheaton (major)
4. Forest Glen (major)
5. Potomac Avenue (major)
6. Friendship Heights
7. Woodley Park-Zoo Adams Morgan
8. Smithsonian
9. Foggy Bottom
10. U Street (major)
11. Ballston-MU
12. Court House
13. Virginia Square-GMU
14. White Flint (major)
15. Franconia-Springfield
16. Brookland-CUA
17. West Falls Church (major)
18. East Falls Church (major)
19. Shady Grove
20. Rockville
21. Twinbrook (major)
22. Rhode Island Avenue
23. Fort Totten
24. West Hyattsville
25. Prince George’s Plaza
26. College Park (major)
27. Addison Road
28. Congress Heights
29. Southern Avenue
30. Pentagon
31. Glenmont (major)
32. Union Station (major)
33. Judiciary Square (major)
34. Gallery Place (major)
35. Metro Center (major)
36. Farragut North (major)
37. Dupont Circle (major)
38. Tenleytown (major)
39. Naylor Road
40. Suitland
41. Branch Avenue
42. Deanwood (major)

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Courthouse. no!

how about using the money to fix the escalators!?

Anonymous said...

Mini makeovers? Sounds like what happened at McPherson last week. Someone found the light switch for the platforms.

Cleaning, painting and repairing seems to me to be what WMATA should already be doing as part of regular, routine maintenance. Way to pat yourselves on the back, Metro, for doing the never-ending job we pay you to do.

Anonymous said...

subway stations are supposed to be dumps. i'd rather go without a makeover and have trains that didnt' break down every day and didn't kill people.

Anonymous said...

$7.5 million to clean? Don't you have a $140 million budget deficit? Let the cleaning go till next year.

Fire Catoe. Please will someone for the love of our region, please FIRE CATOE.

michelle said...

i agree... let the cleaning wait!!

skigrrll said...

Most of the stations on this list that I've been to are in pretty good shape. Are they perfect? No, but I don't think they need more money sunk into them other than the normal routine maintenance that's apparently being done!

dcvoterboy said...

gotta love how Metro messed up the press release and made it twice as long by repeating the entire text!

Anonymous said...

stoopid! scrimp every penny to make the trains stop breaking.

Amanda said...

Glenmont station does NOT need power-washing as much as I need a train that will get me to work on time without killing me! And if they want to upgrade some stations, how about installing better lighting - that's one thing Glenmont and other stations could use.

Anonymous said...

Ballston and Courthouse, yes, they do need the makeovers. And Metro Center, yes with a bullet!

While I agree that the first priority is having the trains run safely and on time, I disagree about postponing cleaning and maintenance to make that happen. In fact it was partly the lack of regular maintenance on things like track and rail cars that led to the safety and breakdown problems. We should not let the cleanliness of the system go so much that someday it costs a fortune to clean up the whole system.

A president needs to be able to focus on more than one thing at a time, and so does a Metro General Manager. A decent transit agency should be able to do both - make the trains run on time, AND keep the system clean.

MartinB said...

Friendship Heights needs more powerful lights. It's darker than Osama's terror-cave.

Joshua Davis said...

@Anon 12:58

Ballston needs cleaning? My only problem with that station is the trash that seems to pileup there.

West Falls defiantly doesn't need cleaning and painting.

Why not use this money to offset the $4 million in service cuts?

Anonymous said...

If they're gonna fix up Congress Heights, could they skip the cosmetic stuff and just repair the escalator that's been broken since my housemates moved here in August?

Anonymous said...

College Park needs to get the outdoor escelator fixed. It's been broken since November!

And I wish the signs announcing the train arrivals would show the Branch Avenue trains more often. It seems like at least once a week I get to the platform and a train I would have hurried up for if announced is just leaving!

Anonymous said...

the stations definitely need to have train arrival times displayed OUTSIDE the stations, and stop with all the scrolling text, there's so much of it you can hardly ever see the train information.

Anonymous said...

makeovers? aren't they hurting for money right now?

form over function for the DC metro once again...

Anonymous said...

@ HurricaneDC: Foggy Bottom also needs better lights. That station is practically pitch-black.

There's one question that demands an answer: Why is Glenmont pencilled in for a major makeover when it's barely 12 years old, whereas Van Ness-UDC has walls that are covered in grime and track dust and other crap (seriously, those walls are probably dirtier than the human mouth is) that are BEGGING to be cleaned, and yet IT'S NOT EVEN ON THE DAMN LIST?!? I haven't seen Glenmont in a while, but last time I saw it, it looked fairly clean, so this "major" makeover isn't even necessary for it. So, bottom line, cancel Glenmont's makeover, and give it to Van Ness-UDC instead! It needs it with several bullets!

Anonymous said...

The Medical Center Metro station escalator into the platform has been out of operation since the spring. I don't even see workers there anymore. Who's responsible for this? No working escalator and no one working on getting it back into operation. Doesn't seem to bother anyone except me.

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