6000 Series MetroRail Cars and Wheelchairs

We have been fortunate enough to wheel all around the new 6000 series rail cars WMATA is bringing into service, and they seem to be an interesting trade-off from the perspective of wheelchair users.

The biggest change is the lack of vertical poles at either end of each car, leaving a very large space capable of easily taking multiple wheelchairs.  This also means that a wheelchair user can travel from one end of the car to the other without serious impediment.

Unfortunately, Metro has made the center of each car the designated wheelchair space (at least going by the lack of wheelchair signage at the ends of the cars), with only two bays.

This will take some getting used to by those users who are more familiar with waiting to board on either end of a car – whilst there is room at the ends still, the lack of signage will continue to cause misunderstanding with able-bodied riders.

The center wheelchair bays have additional problems in that there are no wheelchair locks.  Riders are given a horizontal bar mounted to the wall to hold on to, but wheelchair users will have to face fore-and-aft to avoid blocking the aisle further into the car, and the lack of wheelchair wheel locks means they’re holding on against accelleration and decelleration.

Thankfully, these two open spaces are marked with the international disabled symbol, and there is additional signage noticing that they are disabled spaces (as well as two fixed seats opposite these bays), something that WMATA seems to still be completely incapable of providing in the older (5000 series?) cars, which have folding seats at the control cabin end of each car but no signage or other indication that they are reserved for people with disabilities.

Overall, the 6000 series cars are an improvement on the amount of space, and removal of obstacles, for wheelchair users, but they still have the feel of being designed by someone with legs on a computer, not by someone in a wheelchair on the ground.  It’s a step in the right direction, we can only hope Metro improves on.

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