For eight years he made his daily commute on Metro. But after moving to West Springfield last year, he grew weary of the endless delays and service problems on the Blue Line. Service reductions to make way for the new Silver Line had stretched his evening commute to 90 minutes on trains where riders were packed tighter than sardines — and that’s when he could even get on.
“You would see this crush of people trying to get in and then be turned away,” he said. “Once or twice, during really bad days, [trains] would not even stop. . . . There was just no room.”
Yes, Metro riders have been complaining for years, but now many of them are saying enough is enough. It seems for riders of the nation’s second-busiest subway system, things have finally reached a tipping point. They’ve started a riders union and held their first organizational meeting. A Virginia Tech professor has launched a grass-roots campaign for general manager — and some riders are backing him. Others, like Walker, are giving up on the system entirely and moving closer to jobs or buying cars to avoid having to use the system.
