Darren's Adventures in Public Transportation
When I came to visit this city last July, my very first impression of D.C. was from its Metro system. When I first showed up at the end of the Green line, I asked one of the Metro Employees "how long would it take to get to Union station?" He gave me this really drawn out explanation about how I could transfer to the red line at Ft. Totten or Gallery Place/Chinatown and the timing would all come down to whether or not I made a "good transfer." So I was pretty much thrust into this unknown environment consisting of colored rail lines with weirdly named stops all with the expressed purpose of making a "good transfer." With the way that guy talked about it, I was convinced that there was skill involved and with enough practice one could be a much more efficient Metro rider than others. After spending 6 months trying to figure out exactly where to get on the train so that it drops me off closest to where I want to go as well as other riding strategies, I have come to the conclusion that the assumption that skill is involved, was completely wrong. Predicting transit time is a complete crapshoot. For each new train that someone has to get on during any trip, you could end up waiting up to 20 minutes... or 1. Some would say that 20 minutes really isn't that long, especially if thats the worst case scenario, but you cant leave the station so you just have to stand there and think about how much earlier you could have gotten to your destination.
The Metro does other wacky stuff as well... for instance, 2 days ago I was waiting on the platform after work and for some reason a blue line train wasn't going to arrive for another 15 minutes during the afternoon rush (they usually come packed full every 4 minutes during rush hour). I waited as the platform quickly filled up with people and started dreading the ride home packed in like a sardine kind of like this picture:
Anyways, the blue line train finally starts speeding into the station and much to our collective dismay, it speeds right out without stopping. This odd phenomena happens often enough that last weekend I was intending to take a video of a train pulling into the station and stopping but, well, see for yourself...
Just for the record, every train on a given line is 'supposed' to stop at every station along the way (there are no express trains). Well, that is all I have to say on that subject. Expect a post soon on this winters first snow here... I'll leave you with a picture of the fantastically long escalators in this city. I call it "Journey to the Center of the Earth"
When I came to visit this city last July, my very first impression of D.C. was from its Metro system. When I first showed up at the end of the Green line, I asked one of the Metro Employees "how long would it take to get to Union station?" He gave me this really drawn out explanation about how I could transfer to the red line at Ft. Totten or Gallery Place/Chinatown and the timing would all come down to whether or not I made a "good transfer." So I was pretty much thrust into this unknown environment consisting of colored rail lines with weirdly named stops all with the expressed purpose of making a "good transfer." With the way that guy talked about it, I was convinced that there was skill involved and with enough practice one could be a much more efficient Metro rider than others. After spending 6 months trying to figure out exactly where to get on the train so that it drops me off closest to where I want to go as well as other riding strategies, I have come to the conclusion that the assumption that skill is involved, was completely wrong. Predicting transit time is a complete crapshoot. For each new train that someone has to get on during any trip, you could end up waiting up to 20 minutes... or 1. Some would say that 20 minutes really isn't that long, especially if thats the worst case scenario, but you cant leave the station so you just have to stand there and think about how much earlier you could have gotten to your destination.The Metro does other wacky stuff as well... for instance, 2 days ago I was waiting on the platform after work and for some reason a blue line train wasn't going to arrive for another 15 minutes during the afternoon rush (they usually come packed full every 4 minutes during rush hour). I waited as the platform quickly filled up with people and started dreading the ride home packed in like a sardine kind of like this picture:
Anyways, the blue line train finally starts speeding into the station and much to our collective dismay, it speeds right out without stopping. This odd phenomena happens often enough that last weekend I was intending to take a video of a train pulling into the station and stopping but, well, see for yourself...
Just for the record, every train on a given line is 'supposed' to stop at every station along the way (there are no express trains). Well, that is all I have to say on that subject. Expect a post soon on this winters first snow here... I'll leave you with a picture of the fantastically long escalators in this city. I call it "Journey to the Center of the Earth"
