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Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) isn’t exactly a victim of its own success. But the agency sure is facing some additional challenges because of it.


When officials opened five new stations on the Green Line Jan. 13, all 17 trains had four-car consists. WMATA expected to reach an average of 22,000 riders per weekday within about six months. Instead, daily ridership in the first two weeks of operation neared — and some days surpassed — 30,000 trips.


By Jan. 18, WMATA put three six-car trains onto evening rush-hour service; then added two more the next day. One week after opening, WMATA was running five six-car trains and 12 four-car trains during peak periods.


But the trains still were crowded. So WMATA added three more six-car trains Feb. 1 — meaning a total of eight six-car trains, and nine four-car trains run during morning and afternoon peaks.


"Having five six-car trains did help the situation somewhat, but we knew we needed to do more," said WMATA General Manager Richard White in a prepared statement. "Our operations and planning staffs have been working hard every day to find solutions that benefited our Green Line customers, without creating problems on any of our other four lines."


WMATA identified the six cars needed to increase the three trains from four to six cars through maintenance initiatives and by realigning out-of-service "gap trains," which are kept in reserve throughout the 103-mile system.


WMATA gained four cars by reducing the number of available gap trains from seven to six. The remaining two cars recently returned to service after undergoing routine maintenance.


A longer-term solution may be found in the 192 rail cars a CAF /AAI Corp. consortium currently is delivering to WMATA; 10 cars the agency already has received still are in the acceptance and testing phase.


"We hope to put them into service later this month," says WMATA spokesman Ray Feledmann.


Additional cars are scheduled to be delivered at a rate of 10 cars per month for the next 18 months.


Last December, WMATA also signed a $329 million contract with Alstom Transport to overhaul 364 of the agency’s 764 cars. These cars would begin delivery in August 2002.


But agency officials are planning even further ahead.


WMATA’s proposed fiscal-year 2002 budget contains a funding provision to purchase an additional 50 rail cars. If the board adopts the proposed budget, it would go into effect July 1. Feldmann then expects the agency to begin the procurement process as soon as it’s feasible.


—Kathi Kube