Metro doors open on wrong side

WASHINGTON - Imagine that you are standing near a door on a crowded Metro train as it pulls into a station and the door opens on the wrong side of the train.

Sounds nightmarish, doesn't it?

"In the past 100 days, we've seen that problem happen only four times, which really comes to about four in 22 million times," Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein tells WTOP.

"While this problem happens only rarely, it is a safety concern," says Metro Rail Chief Dave Kubicek.

Metro says no passengers were injured because of the malfunction. Those doors open about 216,000 times a day.

"We've basically turned off the automatic door-opening feature, and so the train operators have to press the button."

Metro started opening the doors manually on Monday.

Farbstein says it will take Metro until the fall of 2009 to fix the components in all of its 1,066 trains.

Kubicek says the problem was triggered by electromagnetic interference on the rail lines caused by upgrades to power substations.

Metro plans to keep making substation modifications to accommodate additional eight-car trains.

(Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)