Walking Man may be Walking More

[xoxoxoBruce]

Tyler Cowen on the DC Metro shutdown.

I am finding it difficult to get hard information on this plan, surprise, surprise. They won’t say which lines will be shuttered and there is talk of “six months” for the shutdown, which I translate as “quite possibly more than a year.” They are not even saying it will happen for sure, but I find bureaucracies don’t announce such “bad news possibilities” unless they think they are extremely likely.

It is likely that the previous closing of the Metro for a day for “inspections” was in part a theatrical play to justify this decision. They already knew they would find what they were looking for, as no day-long investigation can reveal enough safety about a suspicious system to avoid a shutdown already thought to be necessary.

Given that Metro lines interconnect (“Only the Red Line runs independently of other lines“), and have hub-spoke relations, is it more efficient to close them all (or mostly) at once? Can you imagine a 14-month period where the core of D.C. did not have much working metro service? Or would it be a four- or five-year period with individual lines shuttered sequentially? If the lines are truly so dangerous, it seems a bunch of them will close at once, and soon.

There's more at the link.

The NY Times give background.