I have lived in the area as well. On any given day a quarter or more of the escalators were not working. It was common for the doors on the subway trains to stop functioning. When this happened they would take the train out of service, abandoning you at some random stop.
From what I was told about the escalator deal in DC....everyone wanted to contract this out to firms in the area that had qualified people. The union argued about this and demanded that they assign the task to them. So fine, but they didn’t have enough qualified people....so they sent them off to classes. Eventually, when the people did come back...half of them really didn’t grasp the manuals or the repairs required....plus a fair number gave quitting notices and went to work for real companies that paid better...so Metro ended up with a crews that weren’t that good at the job.
I sat once for twenty minutes watching a four-man crew of metro escalator guys work on a Pentagon Metro issue. One single guy appeared to know what he was doing. One young guy showed enthusiasm but no grasp of the tools or repair. The other two guys were there to collect a check but weren’t actively doing much of anything. That escalator was down for three days.
I lived there when public transport was run by private companies. Buses and streetcars. The system ran great. Still have some tokens.