WMATA gears up for fifth SafeTrack surge

Written by Jenifer Nunez, assistant editor
image description

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's (WMATA) fifth SafeTrack surge will begin July 20, resulting in around-the-clock single tracking between East Falls Church and Ballston stations through July 31, 2016.

 

The replacement of nearly 2,000 deteriorated wooden rail ties and renewal of 3,100 linear feet of rail infrastructure was completed in the same segment of the Orange and Silver lines during surge #1, on the opposite track. Over the next 12 days, similar work will be completed on the outbound track with a focus on repairing or replacing critical rail infrastructure that affects reliability, safety and ride quality.

SafeTrack is an accelerated trackwork plan to address safety recommendations and rehabilitate the WMATA system to improve safety and reliability by significantly expanding maintenance time on weeknights, weekends and midday hours and includes 15 “Safety Surges” – long duration track outages for major projects in key parts of the system.

The overall objective of SafeTrack is to bring tracks and structures into a state of good repair by eliminating safety hazards, increasing service reliability and improving the ride quality of the system.

 

 

Tags: