Transportation
Why Else Do Subways Shut Down?
The D.C. Metro emergency shutdown is rare, but there are other reasons cities put on the brakes.
A 24-hour shutdown of the entire Metrorail system in Washington, D.C., flooded city streets with cabs, cyclists, and a couple of rogue rollerbladers Wednesday morning as Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority workers worked to perform emergency safety checks on hundreds of power cables throughout the rail network.
The closure comes in the wake of an electrical fire near the McPherson Square station Monday morning, the conditions of which WMATA director Paul Wiedefield described as “disturbingly similar” to the fatal smoke incident at the L’Enfant Plaza station last year.