Dupont Circle station

Dupont Circle station is an underground rapid transit station on the Red Line of the Washington Metro in Washington, D.C. Located below the traffic circle, it is one of the busiest stations in the Metro system, with an average of 16,948 entries each weekday.[3] The station parallels Connecticut Avenue NW between the southern edge of the circle to the south and Q Street NW to the north.

Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle station in 2005
General information
Location1525 20th Street NW
Washington, D.C.
Coordinates38.909499°N 77.04362°W / 38.909499; -77.04362
Platforms2 side platforms
Tracks2
Connections
Construction
Structure typeUnderground
Bicycle facilitiesCapital Bikeshare, 16 racks and 12 lockers
AccessibleYes
Other information
Station codeA03
History
OpenedJanuary 17, 1977 (1977-Jan-17)[1]
Passengers
20225,834 daily[2]
Rank5th
Services
Preceding station Washington Metro Following station
Woodley Park
toward Shady Grove
 Red Line Farragut North
toward Glenmont
Location

Station layout

Dupont Circle station has two tracks with side platforms, one of the only Red Line stations with this setup. This single-bore layout is required by its deep passage beneath the Connecticut Avenue NW underpass and an abandoned streetcar tunnel, now used as an art space. The station's depth required construction using rock-tunneling methods.[4]

There are two entrances to the station. The north entrance, on the southeast corner of Q Street NW and 20th Street NW contains a set of three escalators and an elevator to reach a mezzanine and fare control at the north end of the station. Unique to the station, the edges of the escalators are trellised with plants where normally there would be granite slabs. The south entrance, located on the southern edge of Dupont Circle at 19th Street NW and Connecticut Avenue NW, has another set of three escalators to reach a separate mezzanine and fare control at the south end of the platforms. The station's north entrance escalators are 188 feet (57 m) long. Its south entrance escalators are 170 feet (52 m) long and rise 85 feet (26 m).[5][6]

History
South entrance escalators
North entrance escalators

Dupont Circle station opened on January 17, 1977, the first to open after the original stretch of the Red Line between Union Station and Farragut North.[1] It remained the western terminus of the Red Line until December 5, 1981, upon the extension of the line to Van Ness–UDC.

On May 6, 2000, a woman fell between the tracks but was unharmed as the train passed over her. The station was temporarily closed and the woman was extracted from under the train as power had been shut off.[7] In May 2006, a Metro employee died after being struck by a train in the station.[8]

In 2007, a portion of Walt Whitman's 1865 poem The Wound Dresser was inscribed into the granite wall around the north entrance escalators to honor the city's caregivers during the HIV crisis.[9][10][11]

The south entrance was closed from February 1 to October 21, 2012, to replace all three escalators, deemed among the system's least reliable.[12][13]

On January 15, 2018, a train headed to Glenmont derailed outside the station. Nobody was seriously hurt.[14]

In 2019, Metro repaired the station chiller, which had been out of service for almost 4 years.[15]

In April 2019, construction began on a station canopy for the north entrance, identical to other canopies across the system. Construction was set to be completed in summer 2022.[16] However, construction was delayed due to the contractor that was supposed to provide the custom glass panels going bankrupt.[17]

During the afternoon of December 10, 2019, smoke was reported from an arcing insulator at Woodley Park station causing service to be suspended between Dupont Circle and Van Ness–UDC. Red Line trains were later forced to single track between Friendship Heights and Van Ness due to another arcing insulator failure.[18][19]

References
  1. Eisen, Jack (January 18, 1977). "Circle greets wind tunnel Metro stop". The Washington Post. p. C3.
  2. "Rail Ridership Data Viewer". WMATA. Retrieved February 9, 2023.
  3. "Metrorail Average Weekday Passenger Boardings" (PDF). WMATA. Retrieved July 31, 2018.
  4. "See some of the reasons why Metrorail is hard to maintain". Washington Post. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  5. Johnson, Matt (July 8, 2014). "What are the 10 longest Metro escalators?". Greater Greater Washington. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  6. Hedgpeth, Dana (January 24, 2012). "Metro's Dupont Circle escalators are getting their due: Replacement". The Washington Post. ProQuest 917272078. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  7. "Woman Survives Plunge Before Train". The Washington Post. May 7, 2000. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
  8. Weiss, Eric M. (January 9, 2007). "Federal Investigators Question Metro's Safety". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
  9. Mathis, Sommer (June 5, 2007). "Dupont Metro gets poetry". DCist. Archived from the original on February 14, 2010. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
  10. Peck, Garrett (2015). Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet. Charleston, SC: The History Press. pp. 16–17. ISBN 978-1626199736.
  11. Kelly, John (May 18, 2013). "Hark, what poem leaps from yonder Metro wall?". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  12. "Dupont Circle south entrance to close Wednesday, Feb. 1, for escalator replacement" (Press release). WMATA. January 30, 2012.
  13. "Metro completes escalator replacement project at Dupont Circle south entrance" (Press release). WMATA. October 21, 2012.
  14. Iacone, Amanda; Kelleher, Colleen (January 15, 2018). "Red Line train derails near Metro Center". WTOP. Retrieved February 24, 2018.
  15. Pascale, Jordan (August 30, 2019). "After More Than Four Years, The Chillers At Dupont Circle And Farragut North Are Fixed". DCist. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  16. Giambrone, Andrew (April 15, 2019). "Dupont Circle Metro station entrance to get precipitation-shielding escalator canopy". Curbed Washington DC. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  17. Graf, Heather (January 17, 2020). "Metro: Bankrupt contractor to blame for delayed escalator canopy at Dupont Circle station". WJLA. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  18. Muntean, Pete (December 11, 2019). "The Red Line caught on fire three times Tuesday, but WMATA says it's getting better". wusa9.com. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
  19. Haynes, Madisson (December 10, 2019). "Metro Red line suspended again after smoke reported on tracks twice in a day". wusa9.com. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
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