Thursday, July 01, 2010

Hello?

I confess when planning to take metro late at night I have often worried that I would miss the last train. I have learned the hard way to build extra time if you have to switch lines (and therefore take two last trains). And in one memorable evening, a friend and I ended up getting a cab from Crystal City to Greenbelt. It had not occurred to me to worry that the station would not be open when I got there. But now I can add that to the list after two folks were stranded at the Cheverly station when they arrived on the last train and found it locked up.
In the wake of recent stories about gadget over-use and the internet possibly re-wiring our brains, it was nice to read a story where technology helped. The metro number (which they called using their phone since there were no pay phones they could see) suggesting calling back during normal business hours. So they contacted police and also posted it on Facebook. While details seem to be fuzzy as to which method got the Metro employee down to let the riders out of the station, nonetheless, had the riders not had their cells, someone might have found some hot and really tired folks when they unlocked the station this morning.

(I will note, that most stations I have been in do have pay phones, although I haven’t tried using one in this millenia.)

ETA: Link. Sorry, not sure why my links keep disappearing.