Metro Did Good, But ...
Last week I predicted that Metro would be the weak link during the inauguration. I could picture trains breaking down, thousands of people sitting in steamy cars in tunnels while history moved ahead without them. But I was wrong, that didn't happen. It appears that Metro moved people as it was supposed to, that day at least. Wednesday going to work the trains got behind schedule, I was standing on the platform at Twinbrook when they had to off-load a Shady Grove train, escalators were torn up, and everything was back to normal. But for the inauguration, you couldn't complain about Metro.
A celebratory cartoon from this morning's Post:
Here's what WTOP had to say:
Now, if they could just get the trains to run on the other 363 days of the year ...
That is not to say that everything went well during the inauguration. The NYT:
Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people who had tickets, many coming from all over the country for this once-in-a-lifetime event, missed it because of bad organization. Maybe an airline can figure on some percentage of passengers not showing up, they can overbook a flight, but for something like this, you have to assume that people with those precious tickets are going to attend. I saw a cop on the news saying they didn't know where to put people, more people showed up than they expected.
It looks like there will be a Congressional investigation and probably some lawsuits. Did you see the pictures from that tunnel? They herded everybody in there early in the morning, and that's where they stayed.
A celebratory cartoon from this morning's Post:
Here's what WTOP had to say:
For months, Metro has been predicting that it would carry a record number of riders on Inauguration Day.
It turns out the transit agency was right.
"Will it be the largest crowd we have ever seen? We think so," Metro General Manager John Catoe said at board meeting in November.
On Jan. 20, Metrorail carried 1,120,000 passengers, 423,000 bus riders and 1,721 MetroAccess riders for a total of 1,544,721 trips, the highest ridership day ever in the transit authority's history.
"Our Metro system wasn't designed to transport this many people in such a short time, but we did it," Catoe said Wednesday. "Months and months of planning paid off. Throughout Inauguration Weekend, we effectively dealt with record-breaking crowds."
In fact, Tuesday wasn't the only record-breaking day for Metrorail. On Monday the rail system carried 866,681 passengers. At that moment, it was the highest rail ridership day ever for the transit agency, but the crowds on Inauguration Day quickly surpassed that number.
"The 10,000 employees of Metro stepped up, and we feel a glowing sense of pride in knowing the important role we played in making the Inauguration a success," said Catoe. Metro beaming after record-setting days
Now, if they could just get the trains to run on the other 363 days of the year ...
That is not to say that everything went well during the inauguration. The NYT:
Inaugural organizers fielded a flurry of complaints on Wednesday from people who had tickets to see President Obama’s swearing-in, but who were left stranded in an underground traffic tunnel near the Capitol.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Congressional committee that handled the ticketing arrangements, said Wednesday that the Rules Committee would investigate the problems that kept thousands of ticket holders from seeing the event.
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, in a statement on Wednesday, expressed regret that some ticket holders could not get to their sections, primarily in the standing-room area below the Capitol that was designated by the color purple and in the nearby blue zone.
Many people with tickets and even more who arrived without tickets, hoping to see the event from the Mall, endured long waits and frustrating delays in the subfreezing weather. But the purple-ticket holders appeared to have been abandoned by event organizers as they stood crowded, frustrated and cold in what some referred to as the Purple Tunnel of Doom in pictures posted on the Internet.
One purple-ticket holder who said he wanted an explanation and an apology was David Meyer, a Washington political consultant, who along with his girlfriend, missed the ceremonies as they stood in the tunnel for hours without any information.
“The problem was that police directed a large number of people into the tunnel and then they were ignored,” Mr. Meyer said. “There was absolutely no organization at all.” Guided Into Tunnel, Ticket Holders Missed Swearing-In
Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people who had tickets, many coming from all over the country for this once-in-a-lifetime event, missed it because of bad organization. Maybe an airline can figure on some percentage of passengers not showing up, they can overbook a flight, but for something like this, you have to assume that people with those precious tickets are going to attend. I saw a cop on the news saying they didn't know where to put people, more people showed up than they expected.
It looks like there will be a Congressional investigation and probably some lawsuits. Did you see the pictures from that tunnel? They herded everybody in there early in the morning, and that's where they stayed.
posted by JimK at 9:42 AM
14 Comments:
Andrea- not anon
Forest Glen forgot it was Inauguration day and opened its parking lot 45 minutes after it was supposed to be open. They forgot that Metro was only accepting cash up front and didn't have change. I was there at 3:30- and by 4:15, when they opened cars were backed up onto Georgia.
Once we got to the trains, it was ok- not more crowded at 4:25 AM than a regular rush hour. Later on- it was different (I was in the L'Enfant plaza crush at 2 Pm, saw the long lines outside Farragut West at 4:30Pm but at 6 PM- Farragut North was fairly quiet- a lot quieter than it is at 6 PM on a regular day).
One more thing
PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!
I had a complaint:
The Post had said that metro would be running special 16B buses along Columbia Pike to go down near the Washington Monument. We waited an hour with 15 other people, there were no 16B buses. Someone had heard they would be labelled 16S,there were no such buses. There was one bus labelled 16Y (McPherson Square), but the driver said she was going to the GW hospital.
We ended up walking and back across the memorial bridge (7 or 8 miles). Never did we see a special bus.
Nevertheless, well worth the trouble.
rrjr
Metro did well for two reasons.
First, the exaggerated estimates for the crowds turned out to be wrong so Metro had been preparing for much bigger crowds.
Second, people were told they should arrive very early so the incoming crowd was disbursed over a seven hour period (4am-11am). Similarly, departures were staggered over a seven hour period (11am-6pm), varying with individuals' tolerance for the interminably boring inaugural parade.
You guys are so gullible. Let's review the first few days of Mr McChange's administration.
His Treasury Secretary is confirmed.
Waa-hoo! This guy failed to pay his self-employment tax for four years.
The IRS audited him for two of those years and he paid back taxes, interest and penalties. Did the other two years just slip his mind?
Hardly. He quickly paid those when he found out he'd be investigated for a government position.
Then, Obama outlawed questionable interrogation techniques.
Or did he?
Have you heard about his Jack Bauer exception?
"Most politicians would rather do anything than make a difficult choice, and it seems President Obama hasn't abandoned this Senatorial habit.
To wit, yesterday's executive order on interrogation: It imposes broad limits on how aggressively U.S. intelligence officers can question terrorists, but it also keeps open the prospect of legal loopholes that would allow them to press harder in tough cases.
While that kind of double standard may resolve a domestic political problem, it's no way to fight a war.
Effective immediately, the interrogation of anyone "in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government" will be conducted within the limits of the Army Field Manual. That includes special-ops and the Central Intelligence Agency, which will now be required to give prisoners gentler treatment than common criminals. The Field Manual's confines don't even allow the average good cop/bad cop routines common in most police precincts.
The Army Field Manual is already the operating guide for military interrogations. The crux of the "torture" debate has been that the Bush Administration permitted more coercive techniques in rare cases -- fewer than 100 detainees, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden. Yesterday Mr. Obama revoked the 2007 Presidential carve-out that protected this CIA flexibility.
The techniques that had been permissible until yesterday remain classified but were widely believed to include such things as stress positions, exposure to cold and sleep deprivation. Senior officials have said they stopped waterboarding in 2003 -- which in any case was only used against three senior al Qaeda operatives and succeeded in breaking these men to divulge information that foiled terror plots.
The unfine print of Mr. Obama's order is that he's allowed room for what might be called a Jack Bauer exception.
It creates a committee to study whether the Field Manual techniques are too limiting "when employed by departments or agencies outside the military."
The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer "additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies."
In other words, Mr. Obama's Inaugural line that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" was itself misrepresenting the choices his predecessor was forced to make. At least President Bush was candid about the practical realities of preventing mass casualties in the U.S.
The "special task force" may well grant the CIA more legal freedom to squeeze information out of terrorists when it could keep the country safe.
An anecdote former Clinton counterterror czar Richard Clarke recounts in his memoir "Against All Enemies" is instructive. In 1993, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler was horrified by Mr. Clarke's proposal for "extraordinary rendition," where our spooks turn over prisoners to foreign countries like Egypt so they can do the interrogating.
While Mr. Clinton was still chewing his fingernails and seemed to side with Mr. Cutler, Al Gore arrived late to the meeting. "Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides," Mr. Clarke writes. "Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"
The wider danger Mr. Obama is inviting by claiming to draw a line while drawing no line at all is the message it sends to Langley. CIA interrogators are already buying legal insurance in the expectation that a Senator like Carl Levin or some prosecutor-on-the-make rings them up for war crimes. The executive order is bound to produce a more risk-averse CIA culture and over time less intelligence-gathering. No one may be willing to be Jack Bauer when Mr. Obama really needs him. This will have consequences for U.S. safety, and for the Obama Administration if there is another 9/11."
AnonBigot,
It´s not "Mr. Obama", it´s PRESIDENT Obama or simply Mr. President, if you prefer. The tables have turned, stop being so unpatriotic (to use your party´s words against you.)
GOOD NEWS from www.CNN.com
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama signed an executive order Friday striking down a rule prohibiting U.S. money from funding international family planning groups that promote abortion or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion services.
The order comes the day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.
It reverses the "Mexico City policy," initiated by President Reagan in 1984, canceled by President Clinton and reinstated by President George W. Bush in 2001.
The policy, referred to by critics as "the global gag rule," was initially announced at a population conference in Mexico City.
Reversing the previous administrations' stance on the policy was one of Clinton's first acts as president in January 1993 and the very first executive order issued by Bush on January 22, 2001, the 28th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Don't Miss
* Obama backs 'right to choose' on Roe anniversary
Critics, including Planned Parenthood, called Bush's move a "legislative ambush."
He defended his action, saying, "It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortion or actively promote abortion."
The group Population Action International praised Obama's move, saying in a statement that it will "save women's lives around the world."
"Family planning should not be a political issue; it's about basic health care and well-being for women and children," it said. "Women's health has been severely impacted by the cutoff of assistance. President Obama's actions will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning."
Yay for New York:
"
Statement by Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle
January 23, 2009 – “We congratulate Kirsten Gillibrand for being appointed by Governor Paterson as our new U.S. Senator from New York. Finally, the great state of New York has a U.S. Senator who supports marriage equality for same-sex couples. Kirsten Gillibrand also supports the full repeal of the federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) law, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) and passage of legislation outlawing discrimination against transgender people. Actions always speak louder than words, and in that spirit, we look forward to working with her on the issues that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community cares so much about.”"
Thanks for the Wall Street Journal article, Anon.
Yes it was, Bea. I don't know why you think pointing out where a post comes from is some indictment.
Read the Journal every day. It's possible even you could learn something. I read all the opinion pieces in the Post and the Journal every day. That's why my base of knowledge is so much broader than yours. I'm not going to reference every opinion piece. Partly because it's too much trouble but mostly because it's irrelevant. The idea is the topic of discussion not the TTF tactic of looking up past positions to divert focus.
Here's an excerpt of Michael Gerson's column from yesterday, explaining why Obama is so far failing in his promise to unite us:
"In a Newsweek essay, Michael Hirsh mentioned Obama's racial achievement. But he went on to say that "there's something else that I'm even happier about -- positively giddy. . . . What Obama's election means, above all, is that brains are back."
Hirsh declared that the Obama era means the defeat of "yahooism" and "jingoism" and "flag-pin shallowness" and "religious zealotry" and "anti-intellectualism." Obama is a "guy who keeps religion in its proper place -- in the pew."
There is much to unpack here. Can it be that Hirsh is "even happier" about the advance of liberal arrogance than he is about the advance of racial justice? And would the civil rights movement have come at all if African American religion had stayed "in the pew"? But suffice it to say that some wish to interpret the Obama victory as a big push in the culture war -- as an opportunity to attack their intellectual and cultural "inferiors."
Most of us have witnessed this attitude, usually in college. The kids who employed contempt instead of argument, who shouted down speakers they didn't agree with, who thought anyone who contradicted them had a lower IQ, who talked of "reason" while exhibiting little of it. They were often not the brightest of bulbs. Most people recover from this childish affliction. Some do not.
President Obama showed unfortunate hints of this attitude during the campaign, in criticizing those who "cling to guns or religion." But he won the presidency, in part, by effectively blunting this edge of disdain -- by extinguishing the culture war with his soothing manner and pragmatism instead of igniting it with liberal arrogance and bitterness. And that kind of ideological smallness is perhaps the greatest threat to the broad coalition of Americans that Obama will need in the coming days of challenge.
So this week I stand firmly with Lewis's joy and against Hirsh's contempt. And I offer my own inaugural prayer: God bless President Obama -- and God save him from some of his supporters."
Yeah, like those who support TTF.
Yes it was, Bea. I don't know why you think pointing out where a post comes from is some indictment.
There you go again, putting words in my mouth. Where did I say I was making an indictment? Go ahead, interpret my link to the WSJ article in your paranoid way, I can't help you with that. In case you haven't noticed, I think it's important to document sources and do so almost always.
Maybe you think my link was an indictment because you have are aware that we have copyright laws in this country. If so, thank you for displaying your own Bush-like arrogance of doing things "your way, or the highway" -- copyright laws be damned! Sorry, but I believe only Presidents get to issue signing statements.
Read the Journal every day. It's possible even you could learn something. I read all the opinion pieces in the Post and the Journal every day.
I read many more news sources than those two every day, and I do not limit myself to the opinion pages. Whenever possible, I follow or find links back to original sources and form my own opinions.
But if you only read editorials, how'd you like Rove's commentary in the WSJ yesterday? They way Rove tells it, you'd think Bush was only President for the 52 months the US had economic "growth and the strongest economy." What does he think happened to the economy during the other 44 months of Bush's term? Our government tells us "Payroll employment fell by 524,000 in the month of December and by 1.9 million over the last 4 months of 2008....In December, the number of unemployed persons increased by 632,000 to 11.1 million and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.3 percentage points." Rove apparently is unaware of those facts. Oh, and do you think Rove *forget* that when Bush took office we had a $237 billion surplus but as he exits we are all stuck with a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, or do you think maybe he intentionally ignored that fact too? I guess those pesky facts are not considered "relevant" to Rove's Magical *Legacy* Tour, which is waiting, hoping, and dying to take you away...
Anon said "...my base of knowledge is so much broader than yours."
And then, without a hint of irony added "But suffice it to say that some wish to interpret the Obama victory as a big push in the culture war -- as an opportunity to attack their intellectual and cultural "inferiors.""
(eye roll)
From the rest of your sad comment, it seems you have been carrying this "liberals think I'm dumb, but I'm really smarter than they are" chip on your shoulder since "college" and have not recovered from your "childish affliction" yet.
Obama is not like any politician we've ever seen before. Watch him and learn how seeking common ground leads to the needed wide coalition to do the heavy lifting that Bush & Co. was incapable of. Maybe you'll finally discover that "my way or the highway" is only an effective leadership philosophy for dictators.
"From the rest of your sad comment, it seems you have been carrying this "liberals think I'm dumb, but I'm really smarter than they are" chip on your shoulder since "college" and have not recovered from your "childish affliction" yet."
Sounds like this description was a little too close for comfort to TTFers. To begin with, I didn't write it, as you know. It was an excerpt from Michael Gerson's Friday column. He's noting this attitude not because it hurt his fellings but because it makes the kind of dialogue Obama claims to want impossible. As is typical of Mrs TTF, these people try to shift focus when they have no answer.
"Obama is not like any politician we've ever seen before. Watch him and learn how seeking common ground leads to the needed wide coalition to do the heavy lifting that Bush & Co. was incapable of. Maybe you'll finally discover that "my way or the highway" is only an effective leadership philosophy for dictators."
Right now, Obama is whining because Republicans won't publicly support his plan to waste a trillion dollars on frivolous expenditures. If we need the stimulus, we should spend it projects that increase our security, like energy independence and college assistance, and refund the rest. The common man can stimulate the heck out of this economy. Give us back our money.
I know the new Treasury secretary sympathizes with taxpayers.
btw, Obama promised a 4,000 tax credit for college tuition while campaigning and this morning, in his first Saturday morning address, he broke that promise and now calls for a 2,500 credit instead.
Sounds like a lot of politicians we've seen before.
Your references to Bush are from la-la land. He always sought and generally got bipartisan support. Even after the Dems took over in 2006, he still usually got his agenda passed. The only big disagreements came when the presidential campaign starting going.
I didn't write it, as you know. It was an excerpt from Michael Gerson's Friday column.
My bad, I thought the excerpt was a single paragraph because of the quotation marks around it and that the rest of the words were your own. The anti-science crowd, like those who want ID and "abstinence-only until holy matrimony" classes in our public schools, will never rally around a President like Obama. They'll keep whining for vouchers so they can send their kids to private schools or maybe they'll build walled, guarded compounds like some polygamist sects.
Obama promised a 4,000 tax credit for college tuition while campaigning and this morning, in his first Saturday morning address, he broke that promise and now calls for a 2,500 credit instead.
That's because the economic outlook was not so grim during the campaign; it has become more grim recently. Rational people call this "dealing with reality." If you plan something under one set of conditions and then conditions change, the plan should be adjusted because of the new conditions. Obama has been saying for months that economic realities might delay campaign promises..
What's the new economic reality? As the Washington Post reported on the front page Saturday (1/24/09): Downturn Accelerates As It Circles The Globe: Economies Worse Off Than Predicted Just Weeks Ago, By Anthony Faiola, The world economy is deteriorating more quickly than leading economists predicted only weeks ago....
Anon continued Your references to Bush are from la-la land.
My references to Bush's economic record are statistics collected and published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Rove is the one conducting the Magical Legacy Tour, rewriting history in a vain attempt to save his shattered reputation as "The Architect" now that his house has fallen down around his ears.
He [Bush] always sought and generally got bipartisan support
Prove your point that Bush "generally got bipartisan support." Let's see how many Congressional roll call votes you can find during the past 8 years where even a measly 25% of the votes were from Democrats.
Andrea- not anon
Hey, Anon- President Barack Hussein Obama! He read a book this week- more than the former President did in 8 years.
I really laughed when some toady on Bush's staff said Bush read L'etranger - it was some time in the last few months. I think he meant- Bush met a stranger from France.
"He read a book this week- more than the former President did in 8 years."
What proof do you have of that?
I heard he spends most of his free time playing games on his Blackberry.
He might want to read "Audacity of Hope" though. Someone might ask him about it and it would be embarassing if he never read what his ghostwriter put together.
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