DC commuters face subway-free workday over safety inspection

WASHINGTON (AP) — An unprecedented shutdown for a safety inspection of the Washington area's Metro subway system on today inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of people.

The federal government encouraged employees to take the day off or telecommute, children were allowed to miss school and some workers woke up early to take bus after bus, hail pricey taxis or slog through traffic, resigning themselves to a long day.

Michaun Jordan, 51, usually takes a commuter train, then Metro rail lines and a bus to get to her job as a finance officer for the federal government. But today, she took a $15 taxi after her train, then waited at Rosslyn station in Virginia for a bus.

"At first I was a bit disappointed. Then I thought about it – it's best to be safe," she said.

The nation's second-busiest transit system was shut down at midnight Tuesday for a systemwide safety inspection of its third-rail power cables, prompted by a series of electrical fires. It will reopen at 5 a.m. Thursday unless inspectors find an immediate threat to passenger safety, which the system's general manager said was unlikely.

Ridership on Metro has dipped as the system's reliability has deteriorated, and gripes on social media occur daily.

Still, riders take more than 700,000 trips on Metro trains every day because it's still the best way to get downtown from Maryland, Virginia and the city's outer neighborhoods. Today, they didn't have that option.