{"id":7337,"date":"2011-01-05T22:09:12","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T02:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/?p=7337"},"modified":"2011-01-16T15:35:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-16T19:35:31","slug":"a-24-hour-metro-for-one-rider-the-train-is-always-half-full-by-kytja-weir-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/2011\/01\/05\/7337\/","title":{"rendered":"A 24-hour Metro? For one rider, the train is always half full – By Kytja Weir, Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Earlier this week I got a random Facebook message from a reporter who noticed that I had created the Facebook Group Washington Metropolitan Area Residents for a 24 Hour Metro<\/a> and was interested in doing an interview. I wrote her back and we ended up speaking for about 30 minutes about this project. A couple days later this article showed up on the Washington Examiner’s Capitol Land blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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A 24-hour Metro? For one rider, the train is always half full<\/h2>\n

By: Kytja Weir 01\/05\/11 3:34 PM
\nExaminer Staff Writer<\/p>\n

Nikolas Schiller has a dream. But even he calls it \u201ca dream deferred.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d like to see the Metro system operate 24 hours a day. And 689 others agree with him.<\/p>\n

The D.C. consultant and artist created a Facebook campaign in February 2009 called \u201cWashington Metropolitan Area Residents for a 24 Hour Metro<\/a>.\u201d It quickly got a following, even though he acknowledges that many of the fans were already his friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States government operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so should Metro,\u201d became the motto.<\/p>\n

He traveled around to other systems and realized few agencies but New York City run 24 hours a day. But his thinking was that if riders miss the last train of the night in D.C., they have to shell out big bucks for a taxi to get home. <\/p>\n

So why not charge riders more for late-night service, perhaps running just one train per hour? That would allow the trains to move on a single track, freeing up the other side for the track work and maintenance that gets done at night, he said.<\/p>\n

He started the campaign to gauge interest. He even bought ads on Facebook to tout the idea.<\/p>\n

At one point he tried to organize a meet up of the like-minded, hoping to re-create subway parties that occurred on London\u2019s system.<\/p>\n

But alas, Metro has talked of cutting service in recent years, not expanding it. Even the extended weekend service of 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights teetered on the chopping block during the last budget cycle, saved at the last minute by District officials.<\/p>\n

Now, the current focus on safety makes Schiller’s idea even less likely. And then there’s the cost.<\/p>\n

Metro has charged $27,000 to groups to open the rail system an hour early, say for a marathon or other event. At that rate, it would cost about $135,000 a day to keep trains running. That’s $49 million for an entire year. <\/p>\n

To cover the extra costs, the system would need for riders to make about 26,000 more trips each day at $5.24 a pop (twice the current average rail fare) on top of the already 700,000 or so trips that occur on a typical weekday. That’s before taking into account the extra wear and tear on the trains and tracks or other costs that would come from running continuous service.<\/p>\n

But Schiller says he would still like to see it happen. And the Facebook campaign lives on, gathering a few hopeful followers at a time. Three more joined this week alone. <\/p>\n

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Leave comments on the Washington Examiner website: http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/blogs\/capital-land\/2011\/01\/24-hour-metro-one-rider-train-always-half-full<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week I got a random Facebook message from a reporter who noticed that I had created the Facebook Group Washington Metropolitan Area Residents for a 24 Hour Metro and was interested in doing an interview. I wrote her back and we ended up speaking for about 30 minutes about this project. A couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[469,220,313,2076],"tags":[5702,7942,4190,5166,1699,846,5168,5169,6242,5167],"class_list":["post-7337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facebook","category-in-the-news","category-mass-transit","category-transportation","tag-dc","tag-facebook","tag-facebook-group","tag-kytja-weir","tag-metro","tag-nikolas-schiller","tag-riders","tag-united-states-government","tag-washington","tag-washington-metropolitan-area-residents-for-a-24-hour-metro"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":158,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}