Metro’s proposed future strategy includes increased service but also suggests turnbacks for Silver and Red lines

WASHINGTON ( DC News Now ) — The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) released a long-term strategy for its fleet.

The presentation , which was set to be presented at an upcoming meeting on Thursday, outlined long-term plans for Metro’s fleet size and highlighted some proposed changes to service on the Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange and Silver lines.

WMATA outlined a future for Metro where its fleet size would depend on service levels and ridership. Right now, the transit system has 1,278 trains in its fleet — the presentation showed a goal of somewhere between 1,184 to 1,728 trains.

The presentation also outlined how many of each series of trains are currently in service. WMATA outlined plans to phase out the remaining 74 2000-series trains that are still in service for its “near-term fleet.” These trains entered service between 1983 and 1984.

According to the proposal, there was no plan to immediately replace these 2000-series trains — meaning that until Metro’s new 8000-series trains are ready to enter service, the fleet would be cut to 1,204 trains in total after removing these trains.

Metro said that doing so would help the transit system save on ongoing maintenance and periodic inspections. It also said that the strategy “maintains rail service at the FY2025
budgeted service levels.”

Its end goal would also retire 3000-series trains, which entered service between 1984 and 1988. There are currently 276 of those trains in service.

WMATA outlined several other long-term service plans — some of which would require more cars, and some of which would cut back on needed cars.

The plans that would require more cars included increasing Red Line service to run every four minutes, extending the Yellow Line to Greenbelt and increasing capacity by ensuring every train is running with eight cars.

WMATA also outlined a plan to have 24 Blue, Orange and Silver Line trains each hour — with a five-minute headway on the Orange Line and 10-minute headway on the Blue and Silver lines.

The plan outlined several turnbacks that would cut back on needed cars — it proposed that all Silver Line trains turn back at the Stadium-Armory station and proposed that half of the Red Line trains ould turn back at Grosvenor and Silver Spring.

The proposal said that WMATA has the option to purchase up to 800 new 8000-series trains.

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