A transformer fire near the Stadium-Armory Metro station last week left the station’s power system so weak, trains will simply bypass the station until the problem is fixed — and that could take months.
Tuesday morning commuters on the Metro’s Orange, Blue and Silver lines watched as train after train crawled through the Stadium-Armory station while not stopping to pick up passengers.
Metro has not yet announced a definitive timeline for when normal service would resume, though the agency has said it could take more than six months to repair the burned substation, NBC Washington reports.
Last week, a fire took out a 9-megawatt power substation near the Stadium-Armory station used to feed power to trains via the third rail. Currently, Metro is using several other substations, which are farther away, to feed power to the area, but they are already at their output capacity.
Metro announced Friday that, in order to alleviate “stop-and-go” rush hour train rides, it would stop Orange and Silver line service at the station, offering only Blue line trains.
The agency, in a release, said the “skip stop” strategy means Orange and Silver line trains will bypass the station on weekdays from the time service starts to 10 a.m. and between 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
“While the impact of this change is limited to one station, the benefit will be realized by tens of thousands of riders,” the release reads.
Anyone who lives on the Orange line past the Stadium-Armory station will be forced to ride a shuttle bus from Stadium-Armory to one of the two stations on the other side of it.
While service will be cut for these people, they will still be forced to pay full-price for their Metro ride, the Washington City Paper reports.
Dan Stessel, a spokesman for Metro, told the paper that peak fares can’t be changed without the authorization of Metro’s board of directors. So, despite the inconvenience of the station’s closure, commuters will still have to pay the increased fare.
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