Happy Hump-Day! I can see you slumping over and sleeping at your desk, so I’ve helpfully ended each news-blip with a BOOM, in honor of the Black Eyed Peas, Brett from FOTC, and the DC Metro transit system. Stay awake! Boom!

For those metro riders who have finally managed to assuage their fears of track-jumpers and crashed cars—stop reading. Prince of Petworth reports that there was more trouble on the red line yesterday. One witness said his car had “a series of explosions, with little fire and sparks everywhere.” Another mentioned a “loud BOOM!” and a decent cloud of smoke at Metro Center. And before that fiasco, the car reportedly stopped to let a sick passenger off the train. Coincidence? Metro says the train “lost one of its collector shoes”. My theory is that there was an X-Men/Heroes/Men in Black character on the train who beat up an invisible bad-guy, and than erased everyone’s memory. Draw your own conclusions. Boom!

Get ready for the same-sex marriage debate to take the District by storm—D.C. Council member David Catania introduced the bill on Tuesday. Somewhat diplomatically, the bill doesn’t require religious organizations to actually perform the marriages.  There will be a public hearing in October, and a preliminarily vote in December. Although same-sex marriages valid in other states have been recognized here since July, it’s hard to predict which way the wind will blow. Regardless, everyone is going to get drenched. Boom!

According to POLITICO, President Barack Obama has reaffirmed that the White House Olympic office will remain open, even though the US isn’t forecasted to host the Olympics until 2020—at the earliest. Okay, I know it probably isn’t logical, but just remembering President Obama skulk out of Copenhagen makes me hear small violins playing. It’s small consolation. Thoughts? Boom!

Winter is creeping up on fall--but don't panic. There's still plenty of time to dive into some cider-drinking, pumpkin-picking, plaid scarf fun: the Maryland Renaissance Fair is going on until Oct. 25, the Maryland Celtic Festival is coming, or you could even go metro-accessible camping like these sprightly college kids. Boom!

And finally, even Enya couldn’t calm down spa-goers in Bethesda when an 82-year-old woman plowed into a salon. According to WUSA, emergency responders believe the woman mixed up the accelerator and the brake. Boom—okay, not appropriate. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.

Don’t you feel awake now? Washington City Paper: Stronger than your morning coffee.

Photo by KM Photography, Creative Commons License

Penn Quarter Living debuts a new column called High Rise Life. The first one is on elevator etiquette. It's not so much a column as bad comment bait of which I am sometimes guilty of. Here's a sampling from PQL's rookie effort on sharing an elevator: "Fob in and offer to push buttons or don’t offer and make sure others belong in the building? Remind neighbors that bicycles and their owners usually ride the freight elevator or zip it? Heel your dog or let him/her sniff around and be friendly? What is good neighborly elevator etiquette?" Fascinating.

Frozen Tropics reports on the breaking news last night concerning the pedestrian hit by a Metrobus in Trinidad. The Post is reporting that the woman has suffered life threatening injuries:

"In Monday's incident, the woman had just gotten off the D-8 Metrobus on Mount Olivet Avenue NE, between Trinidad and Montello avenues. She apparently crossed in front of that bus and then was struck about 6:30 p.m. by another Metrobus traveling in the same direction, Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said.

Two men who said they witnessed the incident told television stations that the woman was thrown a distance down the street, and appeared to be unconscious after being struck. One of the men said that after the woman was hit, the driver of one of the buses 'got down' and prayed."

The Georgetown Metropolitan answers the question: Just what are Georgetown's boundaries?

Do you want to see pictures of people buying records? Someone posted a bunch of pictures from the DC Record Fair held this past Sunday. We wish we could have been there. Meanwhile....Fair sponsor The Vinyl District is giving away tickets to this week's Gossip show at the 9:30 Club.

The New Teacher On the Block offers their take on the hundreds of teachers laid off last week. In the Rhee vs. Gray fight, the blogger sides with Gray:

"Now, of course, this has resulted in finger-pointing, name calling, and a complete lack of transparency on many people's parts (Standard Operating Procedure for DCPS, really). Rhee blames the City Council for not providing the money required to allow all of these teachers to keep their jobs. City Council member Vincent Gray the DC City Council fired back with a press release accusing Rhee of using the council as a scapegoat in executing her master plan of getting rid of large numbers of DCPS teachers.

In this case, I'm in Gray's corner. The numbers just don't lie. It's just another example of the lack of transparency Rhee feels she is entitled to. When I came here, I thought I liked her: I am among the legions of teachers she's supposedly replacing the entire DC teaching force with and I support a lot of the ideas she proposes. But both her behavior and her attitude are counterproductive and arrogant; since I have been here, she has done nothing but alienate, obfuscate, and out and out lie."

According to a Metro spokesperson, Yellow Line trains are stopping at Mount Vernon Square and Green Line trains are single-tracking from U Street to Georgia Avenue. Expect delays.

UPDATE, 2:40 P.M.: Keith Carbone, a political consultant who ran Jack Evans' re-election campaign last year, was on the platform shortly before 2 p.m. when it happened---not more than 20 feet from the jumper, who he describes as a young white man wearing a white shirt.

The train was a Yellow Line train to Huntington; Carbone says he didn't see the jump, but heard a loud thump against the train's plexiglas and a woman's scream. He had walked past the jumper moments earlier.

No one was standing near the man, Carbone says, and there was nothing to indicate any foul play.

Carbone says he immediately went up the stairs to contact authorities and keep passengers from coming on to the platform. At least 20 or 30 people were on the platform when it happened, he says.

UPDATE, 3:35 P.M.: Carbone says police detectives told him that the person struck was a student at Bell Multicultural High School, a block away. Another student witnessed the incident, the detective told him. No confirmation yet from authorities.

UPDATE, 3:45 P.M.: WTOP reports: 'According to a Metro spokesperson, a 15 or 16-year-old boy placed himself on the tracks and was hit by a train. D.C. Fire and EMS tells WTOP the boy suffered massive injuries and the prognosis does not look good. Sources say the boy placed himself on the tracks as part of a game of chicken involving several other teenagers.'

UPDATE, 4:10 P.M.: Metro says the person has died.

UPDATE, 4:25 P.M.: DCPS confirms the victim was a student at the Columbia Heights Education Campus, which includes Bell and Lincoln Middle School.

• District cost of vehicle safety checks: $400,000
• Average cost of new vehicle: $30,000
• Watching new vehicle get flattened by a clunker with busted brakes: priceless.

The saga of Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson wrapped up yesterday when the House officially disapproved of his conduct by a party-divided vote of 240-179. Perhaps New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wasn’t the only one who heard "boy" tacked on at the end?

Unemployment is up and so, apparently, is the appeal of jumping in front of a Metro car—the transit agency has reported eight suicide attempts in 2009 alone, an increase from previous years.

MPD reports a fatal police shooting in the 1700 block of Trenton Place SE on Monday when officers confronted a knife-armed man who claimed, falsely, it turned out, to have murdered and gutted his sister.

The D.C. fire department has been paying friendly visits to those people who eat their daily morning Wheaties and then call - and call and call and call - 911. Last year, there were 30 people who telephoned the Fire and Emergency Medical Services a total of more than 2,000 time, and emergency officials think it'd, well, be better if they didn't.

And finally, Kanye West cried on TV, claiming he felt bad for stealing teeny bopper Taylor Swift's microphone at the MTV Video Music Awards. Clearly, this is his cover for being super ecstatic that Jay Leno is on prime time.

Morning all. It's mid-August, which means that journalists are on vacation and there's not much in the way of news out there. But there's still a Metro page to fill, and that's all the explanation you need to know why the Washington Post's Paul Schwartzman went on and on and on this morning about the persistence of patronage politics in D.C.

In one untidy package, Schwartzman fit elements of investigative journalism, summer featurey sorta stuff, plus maybe a little news. A couple of snippets:

"So what's wrong with D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) using taxpayer money to hire his girlfriend as a consultant?

Absolutely nothing, [said contractor Robert] Adams. In fact, he expects government officials to take care of their friends and family, and he sees no harm as long as 'they aren't hurting nobody. It's all about who you know, whether you've got the experience or not,' said Adams, 53, sitting on his porch in Congress Heights. 'That's the way the world works.'"

And: "I tried to clean it up, and we made a lot of headway," said former mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), before volunteering that he engaged in the practice. "No one is without sin, and by no means has this been completely corrected. You have to constantly fight it."

Highlight of the story is its in-depth stuff: Schwartzman polled the D.C. Council, reaching 11 of its 13 members. All respondents said that they'd never hired personal friends for their offices. "Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), 48, said he had three aides he has known since his teens and early 20s. He hired them because they were qualified, he said."

Yet even Schwartzman can't compete with the Examiner when it comes to filling space. Check out this roach of a story in today's edition: "Ambassadors hit the streets to help tourists, clean sidewalks." Yes, it's a feature about all those Business Improvement District workers, the ones who clean up and help people with directions. Here's how the Examiner's lede comes off:

Most D.C. residents probably don't know much, if anything, about the brightly clad crews that cruise city sidewalks, cleaning, helping tourists and keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

They are the clean teams and ambassadors of Washington's business improvement districts, and they're here to help you.

"There's a pretty demanding set of skills [we look for]," said Rit Thompson, chief executive of the company that hires workers for the Golden Triangle BID. "There's a very high bar to become a member."

Note to Examiner: The BIDs have been around for more than a decade.

Michael E. Ruane, the Post's chronicler of the intersection between federal and local D.C., chooses a slow-moving topic for a summer Metro feature: a round of maintenance on D.C.'s various statues. This one packs it all, including cheezy lede: "The general sat motionless as the man with rubber gloves and tattooed legs gently brushed wax across his nose."

Elsewhere in the Post, a tepid story on the return of summer. Here's a little sample: "At a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store on Lee Highway in Arlington County, Sharon Cohen sat with her son, Gabriel, 3, and her father, George McLoone, who turns 64 Friday. Cohen said she took her son out for ice cream to celebrate his birthday, which was Saturday.

'We planned to meet for birthday ice cream,' she said. 'And turns out we had good timing, cause it is a great day for ice cream.'"

We got a fourth person charged in the bribery and kickback scam that went down in the D.C. government's technology office. WARNING TO LAX AND SHORT-ATTENTION-SPANNED READERS OF LL DAILY: This scam is different from the scam that rocked the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. The tax scam involved basically just stealing money from the city's coffers. The technology scan allegedly involves steering contracts to cronies and getting kickbacks and other favors in return. Important distinctions, there.

Metro is ordering safety training following the death of a track worker on Sunday night. WaTimes story on the matter. WaPo edit board asks whether absence of serious oversight is to blame for the system's woes. More Metro dysfunction: Worker who let train leave yard with too many cars tests positive for drugs. WTOP.

More madness from Peter Nickles: D.C. Wire tells us that the city is asking a federal court for a rehearing on the ruling that D.C. security checkpoints in Trinidad were unconstitutional. Attorney General Nickles had this to say in the request: "The panel decision holds that the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement authorities in the District from ever stopping drivers at checkpoints in order to deter crime. Even assuming that general deterrence interests are insufficient to justify a suspicionless stop, the Court should hold that a properly tailored checkpoint may be reasonable, and hence constitutional, in at least some circumstances when federal or District authorities act in response to specific, credible threats of imminent violence." Examiner story on same. WTOP.

Play it again, WaTimes: Another piece on the District's sole gun transferer, Charles Sykes.

Dog thrown in trash manages to live. Might have been involved in dog fight. Perhaps Michael Vick needs to make one of his Humane Society appearances right here in the District.

Fenty's Schedule:

10:45 am: Remarks, Walker Jones Education Campus Ribbon Cutting
Location: New Jersey Avenue and Pierce Streets, NW

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---"Councilmember Barry: What Did Sharon Bowen Actually Do?"

Morning all. First, local legendary singer Eddie Daye passed away late last week. Our own music blog has posted a sweet tribute to the man and his talents. He was 78. Key graph: "While those online and crate-digging fans may cherish copies of his obscure singles (some of which have been reissued on cd), I will just keep my memories of those fun late nights out seeing him sing bluesy soul and my conversations with him about his musical career and his take on 50 plus years of r’n’b history."

SUMMER FINALLY COMES TO D.C.: The heat is upon us; today, temps are expected to climb into the triple digits. WTOP reports that the District is opening up several cooling centers and extending hours at area pools. WJLA and NBC4 also has a story on the heat wave. AP has another story, this one one the opening up of a new aquatic center in Tenleytown.

A MUST READ FROM COLBY KING: On Saturday, Colbert King published an eye-opening column on disorderly conduct arrests by D.C. Police officers. Citing records from the Office of Police Complaints, King produces a few stunning accounts of police abusing "disorderly conduct" charges against District residents. One of the many key graphs: "Residents are arrested in D.C. for disorderly conduct in large numbers: nearly 5,000 in 2007, more than 4,200 in 2008 and 4,469 this year as of Aug. 5. Many are probably arrested for good reasons: noise violations, blocking public spaces, etc. But, as in the Gates arrest, some busts never make it to court."

FENTY'S DRIVING RECORD: WaPo cites several sources critical of Mayor Fenty's insistence on driving himself to various ribbon cuttings, press conferences, etc. Nikita Stewart notes in her lengthy piece that no other big city mayor drives themselves around. Key quote: "I think it's curious that he's driving himself," said D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary. "Why not have the security detail . . . when you have an accident like this past week?" Outside experts from other cities say security should be a top priority, and we're not paying Fenty to drive around, we're paying him to make decisions and think critically about the city's needs---we don't want him spending his time worrying about getting across town.

AFTER THE JUMP: More revelations on the Metro front, Jonetta sticks up for AG Peter Nickles, and much, much more.

HAWK ONE: The ubiquitous private security firm is trying to save its District contracts, the Examiner's Michael Neibauer reports. Expect some kind of media blitz by Hawk One managers to save their contracts. A bit of news in this story: "Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells, a former school board member, said he wanted to consider hiring security officers as employees of the city government, rather than as private contractors."

METRO PROBLEMS: Here's some quick links. WaPo continues to be all over this story. The crash system failed in June during a near crash: "The crash-avoidance system suspected of failing in the recent deadly accident on Metro's Red Line malfunctioned three months earlier, when a rush-hour train on Capitol Hill came 'dangerously close' to another train and halted only after the operator hit the emergency brake, newly obtained records show." AP follows up. Metro's oversight panel has little sway, WaPo reports. Key graph: "The committee has no direct regulatory authority over safety and cannot order Metro to make changes. It has no employees of its own and no dedicated office, phone or Web site. It borrows space for its monthly meetings, which officials said no member of the public has ever attended." WaPo also reports that a Metro worker died Sunday after being struck by a piece of track equipment.

Jonetta Rose Barras stands up for AG Peter Nickles. This is one of the more phoned-in columns I've seen in a while. Key graph: "He has aggressively defended the city against lawsuits, saving taxpayers tons of money. He has protected citizens against corporations and individuals who have attempted to rip them off or deny them their rights. His office battled CareFirst over its alleged failure to invest profits in the health care of low-income people. He jacked up slum landlords and private companies scamming black churches. He pushed for improvements in Child and Family Services and, with the council, defended the city’s gun control laws." Nickles may or may not have pushed for improvements with CFSA---but he has most certainly pushed to get CFSA out of its court oversight as the agency continues to fail to meet its benchmarks.

MAYOR'S SCHEDULE:

10:30 a.m. Remarks
Alice Deal Middle School Ribbon Cutting
Location: 3185 Fort Drive, NW

2:00 p.m. Remarks
Bruce Monroe Elementary School Demolition
Location: 3012 Georgia Avenue, NW

6:30 p.m. Remarks
2014 Gay Games Kickoff Rally
Location: Stead Field
1625 P Street, NW

Washington's hottest period so far this year is expected to start Sunday, and it could last three or four days, according to forecasts....

"If you thought we might make it through summer without a heat wave, think again," wrote Jason Samenow on The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang blog.

Heat waves, whether tolerated or deplored, have been recognized through the years as salient facts of Washington's summers.

But so far this year, the longest stretches of temperatures of 90 degrees or more have been a mere two days. Only on July 16 did the mercury at National reach as high as 96, and only twice have there been as many as two consecutive 90-or-above days.

And speaking of the Post, really good story about Metro kinda covering up a breakdown on the tracks that preceded by a few months the fatal June 22 crash. The gist of this story is that Metro's vaunted electronic system that's supposed to keep trains from crashing into one another broke down in early March. Thanks to the alertness of a Metro train operator, a crash was averted.

Not only didn't Metro tell the public about this incident, it didn't tell the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), according to the Post. Debbie Hersman's gonna be pissed!

The Legg Mason tournament ended yesterday. No more needs to be said about it.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---"Jack Evans Says He Still Supports Peter Nickles," "Councilmember Alexander Raises Concerns Over AG Nickles."

Morning all. Last night may have been National Night Out but for Mayor Fenty, it's Greek Week. WaPo breaks the stunning news that the District government actually paid the $37,000 tab for his Kappa Alpha Psi's welcoming party. The bash was held on Monday night and featured an open bar, crab cakes, red velvet cupcakes, and jazz bands tooting on two floors. The Post makes no mention of beer bongs and togas. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development had put out the dough via a grant. AG Peter Nickles apparently has forced Fenty and Co. to reimburse the city for the shindig. But Nickles swears Fenty knew nothing about the city's involvement. Key graphs:

"Attorney General Peter J. Nickles said he looked into the matter Tuesday morning at the request of the mayor. 'I concluded immediately that this was not proper,' said Nickles, who said the society reimbursed the money that morning.

Although the mayor attended the affair and was on stage as fraternity members thanked him for paying for the event, 'he didn't put two and two together that this was money that had come from the city,' Nickles said."

SEX ED NEWS: The District plans to expand its STD testing program into all public high schools. WaPo has the full story on this progressive move. There are plenty of reasons to do this. Key graphs: "The program conducted last year at eight high schools found that 13 percent of about 3,000 students tested positive for an STD, mostly gonorrhea or chlamydia, according to the D.C. Department of Health. The expansion places D.C. public schools in the vanguard of a growing number of urban school districts that test adolescents for STDs. About 12,000 students attend public high schools in the District." The news came within hours of DC Appleseed releasing its report card on how the District is dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis (for public education, the District received a C+). WaPo covers the DC Appleseed's findings noting the overall positive scores: "But the report took Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) to task for failing to give the disease more visibility. 'While Mayor Fenty and his administration deserve recognition for the continued support of . . . numerous HAA initiatives, his public appearances and statements about the epidemic have fallen short of his enthusiasm for action inside the government,' it said."

THE NEW YORK TIMES IS ON OUR SIDE: The paper's editorial board comes down hard against Congress and its attempts to meddle in our needle exchange program. The editorial dubbed the meddling an "outrage."

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT: As we mentioned above, National Night Out happened. This meant another All-Hands-On-Deck effort from the D.C. Police Department. Police visibility was high! But News Channel 8 reports that the District still endured at least one violent incident. Three people were injured during a shooting in Southeast shortly after 10 p.m. News Channel 8 reports: "Fire officials say two 38-year-old women and a 17-year-old boy have each been shot in the leg."

AFTER THE JUMP: A power outage, more Metro news, Harry Jaffe pens a quick profile of the judge in the Pershing Park case, and much, much more.

Fox5 covers a power outage that left one Northeast neighborhood without electricity for most of yesterday. Three utility poles had crashed to the ground. Key graph: "The downed lines were a health hazard for some. One 7 month old who suffers from a heart condition was taken from his apartment complex, which had no electricity for hours."

METRO: Yesterday, Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. begged a Senate subcommittee for more money. WaPo reports: "Metro, the only major transit agency without a source of dedicated funding, says it needs more than $7 billion for capital projects over the next 10 years to offer safe and reliable service." Catoe stated that without additional funding, safety as well as service would decline. Bonus graph: "Catoe used a question from Menendez about what lessons he has learned from the crash to sharpen his request for more money. He noted that the oldest Series 1000 train cars are less crashworthy than the newer cars, which he said "did not cause the accident but had an impact on the amount of damage that can be done." All six of the cars on the train that struck the one ahead of it were from the old series."

FBI RAID: Yesterday, the feds raided a health clinic in SE as well as a medical supply company. The agents are looking into allegations of medicaid fraud. WUSA9 reported that a number of patients had to be turned away while the agents did their work.

STaTter 911 raises some good points over the on-going issues with the hydrants:

"Councilmember Jim Graham announced Friday he will hold a hearing on September 16 to determine what went wrong at the fire last Wednesday night at the Chain Bridge Road mansion of former DC Board of Education president Peggy Cooper Cafritz. The Ward 1 councilmember is trying to determine why it took the DC Fire & EMS Department almost two hours to establish a reliable water supply to combat the fire.

Mayor Adrian Fenty has asked the fire chief and the DC Water & Sewer Authority (WASA) for reports this week on what happened and how to correct the issues.

If this sounds familiar, it should. In late 2007, Councilmember Graham held a series of hearings looking at the serious water supply issues that became apparent during a four-alarm fire that destroyed an apartment building in Adams Morgan on October 1 of that year. The Fenty administration also ordered an investigative report into the problems that occurred during that fire.

So what happened to the report?"

YOU DON'T MESS WITH U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE EMMET SULLIVAN: That's the gist of Harry Jaffe's new column in the Examiner. Judge Sullivan is presiding over the controversial Pershing Park case and has called on the D.C. Council to investigate possible wrongdoing in which evidence has either been lost or destroyed or messed with. Key graph: "Three different presidents put Sullivan into three different judgeships: Ronald Reagan appointed him to Superior Court; George Bush (41) moved him up to the federal court of appeals; Bill Clinton nominated him to the federal district court in 1994. From the streets of his home town to the federal bench, friends and lawyers have learned one thing: 'Don't cross the dude.'"

FENTY'S SCHEDULE:

10:00 a.m.
Remarks Savoy Playground Installation Kick-off
Location: Savoy Elementary School
2400 Shannon Place, SE

3:45 pm Remarks
Appleseed HIV/AIDS Report Card Announcement
Location: J’s Barber Shop 3845 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE

"If this is an issue dealing with the safety of the system, I'm not going to restrict the repairs to nighttime. I'm going to get it as soon as I can get it done. And we will look at ways to do that, but that will impact the service on the Red Line," he said.

"Now that we're getting into heavy revamp of the system, it will be impacting services for the next several years," Mr. Catoe said. To lessen disruptions to the system, Metro will rethink how it schedules maintenance. Suggestions include doing large repairs on holidays or specific days of the week like Tuesdays and Thursdays.

In a wide-ranging interview with the paper, Catoe also suggested that problems with a 30-year-old computer system that is being investigated as the possible cause of the crash could impact other transit systems across the country.

"With this, depending again what they ultimately find, could be much larger. It's an issue, depending upon what they find, not just for [the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority]. We're not the only one with this type of system. Most rail operations around the country have a similar system to this," said Mr. Catoe, who insisted he was speculating and distanced himself from the NTSB investigation.

"If they find, let's say, that there's a defect in the part, then you have to look at all the parts around the country because there's only two manufacturers of those parts," he said.

It's not like there are armed robberies downtown, half a block from the White House, in the middle of the day, and it's not like people have been shot inside museums, and it's not like the Metro system isn't safe.

Oh, wait.

As Borderstan notes, there was an armed robbery downtown, half a block from the White House, yesterday afternoon (at 16th and K). And someone was shot inside the Holocaust Memorial Museum. And there was that crash on the Metro that left nine people dead, scores more injured and lots and lots of questions, especially since it's becoming ever-clearer that the problems were long-standing and have yet to be fixed.

But none of that, thankfully, should affect the way tourists see the city at all.

"A six-car Red Line train headed toward Shady Grove was pulling into the station around 12:30 p.m. when witnesses report the man intentionally placed himself on the tracks.   Emergency crews responded to the scene and removed the man from underneath the first rail car of the train. The man was transported to a local hospital."

Single-tracking is in affect between Friendship Heights and Cleveland Park so expect to wait for trains.  Nothing like a delayed Metro to kick off the weekend rush-hour!

The train control system designed to prevent Metro crashes is malfunctioning across the railroad, suggesting that a technological failure at the heart of last month's fatal crash may be widespread, according to officials and documents.

At least one-half dozen track circuits on four of the five lines of the transit system have failed to properly detect the presence of trains.

Six circuits have been shut down in addition to the one thought to have caused last month's Red Line crash. Some of them---including 'circuits at Greenbelt on the Green Line, Grosvenor on the Red Line and Foggy Bottom on the Orange/Blue line'---have been shut off, meaning trains can only pass through them one at a time, at 15 mph.

And double whoa:

[D]ocuments show that Metro technicians have detected malfunctions since at least July 11. Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. said publicly as recently as July 16 that the agency has inspected all 3,000 circuits and not noted any problems.

Yesterday I was on an Orange Line train going toward Vienna, sitting in the back of the train with my bike. Behind me, shut in the rear cockpit, I could see a Metro employee sitting behind the controls, seemingly asleep.

This was the rear of the train, so the only thing that I found disturbing was how amazingly oblivious this guy was to PR. Operator error almost certainly didn't cause last month's Red Line crash, but this seems like a freaking awful time to get caught sleeping on the job.

That said, what would have happened had I taken a cell-phone video of the guy and e-mailed it to Fox 5 or some other arbiter of outrage? For all I know, the guy wasn't actually asleep but deeply bored, to the point of catatonia. He snapped right up at West Falls Church and exited briskly, even saying hey to me as I wiggled my bike out of his way. I can't think of the last time a Metro employee acknowledged me without me forcing them to. So maybe he's not as bad at PR as I initially thought.