Metro's Service Decline Continues

The Macaca Post reports:

Metrorail Reports 17-Month Slide in On-Time Service

Metro's latest performance data confirm what subway riders have been saying for months: Train service is getting worse.

On-time performance has been declining for the past 17 months; not once did the agency meet its performance benchmark of having 95 percent of all trains run on schedule. On-time performance was worst during the evening rush, when it hovered in the 80 percent range. The steepest drop occurred between July and November, when service disruptions increased 30 percent from the same period the previous year.

Declining service now affects more people:

Despite the drop in performance, ridership is growing. Average weekday ridership in October was 739,000 trips, up 6 percent from the year before, according to the most recent budget figures.

...

From July to November 2007, almost 60 percent of the 1,825 service disruptions were caused by mechanical and door problems, according to Metro data.

That also suggests that riders are causing a significant number of the problems themselves by jamming doors out of fear of having to wait an entire minute for the next train.