The Long, Dark Teatime of the Commute

Last night, a man was struck by a train in Clarendon Metro station. Last I heard, he was hospitalized, but still alive, which is good. All things considered, Metro acted appropriately and as quickly as it was possible to do during the height of rush hour, when the accident occured. The Orange Line was shut down from Rosslyn to Ballston to allow the EMTs, CSIs and other necessary TLAs access to the incident site. Shuttlebus service was deployed - but during rush hour, it took a while to set up.

The escalators at Rosslyn shut down - AS THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO - when confronted with overloaded/too much weight conditions. The alternative is maybe having the brakes slip and everyone plummet to the bottom. Since that's happened on a Metro escalator earlier this year, I'm glad the safety kicked in. It did, however, make for a fascinating sight while trying to get *in* to the station and onto the platform:


Metro did convert a third escalator to "Up", and restricted the number of people on it so it could keep running. Meanwhile, the platforms were 100% full of people - I've never seen it so bad, EVER. I and three East Indian girls managed to crowd-dance to the platform edge and catch a train going in the other direction. Coming back the other way (on the Blue Line, which was still up and running), there was NO stop at Rosslyn, because the number of people on the platforms made it too dangerous to try to put anyone off the train. (The last thing Metro wanted was *another* person pushed in front of a train!) Because trains stacked up, were run in reverse (to get some of the people off the platform and headed the other way to the shuttlebus), were single-tracked (one case only, just for safety reasons)... it took quite a while to get home. I left work at 5; I was home by 8:30. It doesn't sound like anyone else was injured, though, which in those crowds was nothing short of a miracle!!