Metro Red Line closures causing frustration for some riders

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - The shutdown of multiple Metro Rail stations on the Red Line is in place. It’s impacting all stations between Glenmont and Takoma. 

WMATA says it’s for summer construction and to do Purple Line prep work at Silver Spring.              

When officials announced how this would all look a few weeks ago, Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said they knew there would be some growing pains, especially at the beginning, any time you change traffic or commuting patterns, that’s what happens.

But there were mixed reactions from passengers dealing with the shutdown stress Sunday.

The key way WMATA will get people around in the absence of Metro Rail is by bus. They’re going to be operating various shuttle buses between the stops impacted; Glenmont, Wheaton, Forest Glen, Silver Spring, and Takoma for the month of June.

Some of those are local shuttles with stops at each station, and others are limited stops at some of those stations.

Metro has employees on site willing and ready to help, and there is signage in place to help people navigate.

FOX 5 spoke to one man who said he thought the signs were self-explanatory and he would navigate this fine.

"If you can read, if you have some type of sense about it, you can see the signs and it kind of directs you where you could go. You can ask official questions about this specific bus stop, that specific bus stop," Red Line rider Sergio Genies said. 

But one woman who said she and others were having a hard time figuring it out.

"The biggest problem that many of us are having is we don’t know which bus is going where," Cecelia Thomas told FOX 5. "So, I just said Fort Totten, there’s a bus right there, the guy’s like, ‘I’m going to Glenmont.’ Well, to get to Glenmont, you pass Fort Totten on the train, so there was just confusion about where we’re supposed to be to get where we need to go."

According to WMATA data, on average, 16,500 riders enter the system per day at the five stops impacted.

But because it’s bus service that’s the main workaround, we can expect to see some impacts on the roads as well for people here in Eastern Montgomery County. 

As part of this project, seven miles of roadway will be designated as bus lanes.

There’s new signage on the ground to denote that, and WMATA says cars who drive in these lanes could be subject to ticketing and fines.