Arlington Resident Who Created 'Unsuck DC Metro' Dies At 54

ARLINGTON, VA — Matt Hilburn, a journalist known for his creation of the transportation social media account Unsuck DC Metro, died Sunday in Arlington at the age of 54, according to reports.

Hilburn was working for Voice of America at the time of his death. The cause of his death was complications of kidney cancer that had metastasized, his father told The Washington Post.

He started the Unsuck DC Metro blog in 2009 to express personal gripes about Metro, whose leadership failed to maintain the system, which had few problems during its first 25 years but started to fall into disrepair in the early 2000s. He also had an Unsuck DC Metro Twitter feed that had more than 80,000 followers.

Hilburn wrote about derailments and other emergency situations, along with common problems about the transit system that made a Metro rider's experience often less than satisfying.

He blogged and tweeted anonymously.

“Throughout his posting career, Hilburn demanded anonymity, though his identity was not exactly a secret,” Washingtonian reported Tuesday. “His LinkedIn page referred to the account in barely veiled terms, he gave his real name to journalists, and he was featured in a photo on a public Flickr account by his real name in 2010.”

Born in Falls Church in 1968, Hilburn graduated in 1986 from W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County. He received a bachelor’s degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia in 1990 and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1999, according to The Washington Post.

Hilburn told Washingtonian that his main concern with Metro was accountability. He rejected the idea that he might bolster his case by writing under his own name.