Metro parking: you're not getting more service for higher fees

Despite raising fees for lockers by an extremely large percentage this year, it does not appear, from a post on Unsuck DC Metro, that the service has improved any. There are reports of several stolen bikes at the New York Ave./Florida Ave. Metro - which, for some reason, is one of the worst stations for bike crime from what I hear. And there is a photo of a locker that was broken into.

I'd be interested in knowing how many lockers they're renting now, and how many they were renting last year.

And why can't there be a little security associated with this? A security camera would help. Or a Metro police sting. Or as has been suggested here and elsewhere, parking within the station but outside the gates.

Comments

[RideTheWomble]

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the bike locker situation is a mess. Metro won't be able to tell you how many lockers are rented, because they don't know. They can't find out using the "system" they have, either. Apparently, they just shove rental contracts in a folder, which is pulled out only when someone is unusually persistent about getting a locker. The list of lockers, if there is one, has not been audited in years - when I rented a locker, I went through two before I found one without a bike already in it. The job of "bike locker person," seems like a hated extra duty that is frequently passed from one person to another.

If you'd like a broken heart, check out how Minneapolis/St. Paul handles the same thing. A few talented programmers could do that here in a short time, at low cost. Open Source volunteer project, anyone? Knowing Metro, though, they'd hire a Beltway Bandit to attempt it for a couple million bucks. The system would be delivered late, wouldn't work, and would quickly fall into entropy in the hands of indifferent Metro staff.

Sigh.

[washcycle]

At one point, WABA was in negotiations to have Metro pay them to manage the locker system. I'm not sure what happened to that, but it seemed like the best solution. WABA cares about cyclists far more than WMATA. And I suspect they could find some volunteers who would help them bring it into the 20th century. I think they should revisit this.

[RideTheWomble]

That would be a great solution. I'm not optimistic they'd cooperate with an outside entity, given the weirdly fervent resistance they put up about releasing (our) transit data. If they gave control to WABA, though, they'd be happy to have what is clearly considered a pain for them off their hands. On our side, the incentives would be aligned correctly, and things would be a lot better. Good luck, WABA, if you're still working on that!

[Jan]

I agree with RideTheWomble that they just stuff the locker contracts into a folder somewhere. They screwed up my locker renewal in the past really badly, and those events led me to understand they really don't know what is being rented and what is not.

[SJE]

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that Metro is disorganized!