Replacement Of Metro's Delay-Prone Old Rail Cars Delayed

Metro riders have been waiting a long time for new rail cars to replace the ones that have been in use since the transit system’s inception — and they'll have to wait at least a couple months longer.

Metro’s trumpeted 7000-series rail cars — modern and sleek, no carpets but comfy seats — were supposed to start carrying passengers by the end of the year. But the transit authority’s general manager says they won’t be ready until early  2015. The reason? Metro does not have a completed test track, so it needs more time to finish testing the first 64 new rail cars.

Riders are not surprised. "Seems kind of par for the course with a lot of Metro things," said one.

And many riders aren’t all that happy with Metro, either. Bus and rail riders’ customer satisfaction is below Metro’s goal of 84 percent.

"It’s not the worst. I’ve been on worse things. But I expect delays pretty much every day," said one passenger. "Overall, if I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I would say a six just because of frequent delays, and also the escalators are out of service and I’m traveling so I have to be lugging my luggage everywhere," said another.

Delays are frequently caused by breakdowns of the old rail cars the 7000-series are supposed to replace. Metro currently has funding to replace 400 old rail cars and expand the fleet by an additional 128. It will take about three years, though, to phase in those 528 new rail cars on order