Officials with Washington, D.C.’s Metro mass transit system fielded more than 2,300 comments during just one month, which were typically riders’ and pedestrians’ complaints and sometimes compliments or suggestions.
The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group obtained copies of the comments originally submitted to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority during November 2016 via a public records request. (EXCLUSIVE: Here’s What 2,300 People Had To Say About Metro)
TheDCNF’s review revealed that riders most frequently complained about delays and other Metro-cause problems that interrupted their trips. More than 300 of the submissions were complaints about rude employees. (EXCLUSIVE: Metro Employees Shouted At Old Ladies, Mocked Kids, Endangered Pedestrians)
Metro also received nearly 200 compliments about especially outstanding employees. The comments also included suggestions to improve the transit system and complaints about maintenance problems and other riders.
Below are a selection of previously unpublished and unedited comments submitted to Metro, plus a spreadsheet of all the November 2016 submissions.
— “I’m not sure how to put this delicately, but the passenger we picked up on my way home from work tonight was masturbating in the back of the van. I felt too uncomfortable to call this to the attention of the driver at the time, but I figured it would be best to let you know in case this was a repeat offense.”
— “THESE BUS TAKE TO F–KING LONG TO COME WTF IS UP BECAUSE WE SIT AT THE BUST STOP IN THE COLD FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR WAITING FOR THE U5 and the U6 please get it together asap.”
— “F–k you. F–k you for offloading a train at Judiciary Square for no reason. F–K YOU for making an unjustified, a–hole decision that forced me to walk because boarding a train to Union Station was literally impossible. F–k you for refusing to provide service. You are scum. You are garbage.”
— “19 F–KING MINUTES BETWEEN YELLOW LINE TRAINS??!!ARE YOU F–KING KIDDING ME??!! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU IDIOTS??!! PEOPLE HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU DON’T GIVE A F–K ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS. DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SERVICE? NO ONE HAS TIME TO WAIT 19 F–KING MINUTES WHILE 6 GREEN LINE TRAINS GO PAST. WHY HAVEN’T YOU MOTHER FULKERSON BEEN FIRED??”
— “Metro f–king sucks delays and single tracks thats bulls–t making people late.”
“Whenever a customer takes the time to contact us with a complaint, we work hard to resolve the issue to the greatest extent possible,” Metro spokesman Richard Jordan told TheDCNF. “It is important to keep in mind that, during the timeframe of your request, Metro provided more than 23 million trips – a complaint rate of less than 1 complaint for every 46,000 trips provided.”
Jordan also noted that these comments were submitted when SafeTrack – Metro’s maintenance overhaul that came with significant service disruptions – was in “full swing.”
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