Quick OPM decision eases Metrorail shutdown aggravation for some Pentagon, JBM-HH personnel

Last week's Metrorail shutdown left thousands of commuters scrambling for alternative travel plans and work schedules to avoid would-be, bumper-to-bumper interstate commutes, according to various local news reports.

Those who serve and work at the Pentagon and throughout Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall also felt the impact of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's afternoon decision March 15 to close its six Metrorail lines and 91 stations last Wednesday.

Metro announced the planned March 16 shutdown, which was intended to allow WMATA to conduct inspections of the system's power cables following several a tunnel fire the day prior, via a press release at 4:35 p.m. Most major local news outlets began reporting news of the shutdown earlier in the day.

Regardless, plenty of federal civilian employees and service members alike found themselves having to make alternate arrangements to work around the 29-hour shutdown of D.C.'s rail system, which serves some 700,000 customers daily, according to WMATA's website.

"I did not come to work that day as I anticipated a lot of people driving," said Edelina Rose, who works in the Marine Corps' Office of Communication at the Pentagon.

Rose relies on Metrorail to get to and from work daily, often spending some 90 minutes or more commuting. With the trains out of commission, Rose chose to telework during the outage, an option authorized by the Office of Personnel Management's announcement allowing federal employees to take unscheduled leave or telework March 17.

"Data from the most recent Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey shows that over 70 percent of respondents in the National Capital Region have the ability to telework," reads a statement emailed to the Pentagram by OPM's Communications Office. "While Metrorail is a primary transportation source for many federal employees, alternative means also remained available for the 16th."

OPM released its decision authorizing telework or unscheduled leave for federal employees less than two hours after WMATA's announcement of the closure.

But not everyone got the message in time to take advantage of the alternatives.

"My initial reaction to the announcement was I wished they had made the announcement earlier," said Bill Perry, who relies on Metrorail daily to get to and from his "President's Own" U.S. Marine Band office at the Pentagon.

Unlike Rose, Perry did not receive the message in time that telework the next day would be authorized. Since he did not bring home his laptop, telework was not an option. He didn't want to drive to the Pentagon because he thought available parking space would be scarce due to the shutdown.

And so, he found another option: he drove to Marine Barracks Washington in D.C., where he was able to use an office.

"My time driving to the barracks was about the same amount of time of my normal commute," said Perry, who added that he believes OPM made the right decision in authorizing telework.

At the Cody Child Development Center on the Fort Myer portion of JBM-HH, the Metrorail shutdown forced the center's staff to plan ahead to ensure there were enough staff workers on hand March 17 to keep the center running.

Sunny Smith, director of JBM-HH's Child, Youth and School Services program, said the center had 12 staff members impacted by the shutdown, including workers who opened the center at 6 a.m. That required extra planning to ensure there was enough staff on hand to allow parents to drop their children off on time, said Smith.

"We also had a couple managers come in early to ensure ratios [staff to children] would be met if more people called out," said Smith. "We were expecting worse."

For Marine Corps Maj. Khari Wright, commander for Headquarters Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion on the Henderson Hall portion of the joint base, last Wednesday's Metrorail shutdown came just three days into his switch to use the train system for his daily commute.

"My plan was to use Metrorail all week," said Wright, who also occasionally bikes the 10 mile distance between his office at Henderson Hall and his residence.

Due to an injury, Wright was unable to complete the 10 miles on bike Wednesday, so he got a ride from his wife to get to and from work.

"My first reaction when I heard about the shutdown was, 'wow,'" said Wright. "This was the first time for a major Metrorail closure in recent years, the first time for a closure, and I had just started using it for my commute… All I could think was, 'Wow, they finally got me.'"

U.S. Army Capt. Deveney Wall, another Pentagon worker, uses Metro's bus system to get to her office at Headquarters, Department of the Army. She used to rely on the Metrorail system daily for her commute, but that changed after she moved to a new residence, she said.

Like others, she felt OPM's decision helped alleviate extra traffic congestion by keeping federal employees who could telework at home and off the roadways, and off of the Metro's buses.

"There was a little bit more, but I thought it was going to be more crowded [on the bus]," said Wall. "Because so many people got the chance to telework or take leave, I think that helped minimize the extra traffic."

WMATA reopened Metrorail for travel at 5 a.m., March 17.

A WMATA follow on press release announced that the suspension of the Metrorail service "followed an early morning electrical fire involving a cable in the tunnel outside McPherson Square Station on Monday, March 14."

One Metrorail commuter was killed last year and dozens more hospitalized following an electrical fire near Metro's L'Enfant Plaza station.