Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Metro woes

I have to admit that I’m pretty spoiled when it comes to mass transit. My house is located five blocks from the Rhode Island Ave Metro stop. And up until two weeks ago, my office was half a block from Farragut North. I could usually leave my house at 8am and get to the office by 8:30.

Things have changed since my office moved. Although I get off at Metro Center, one stop before Farragut North, there is a longer walk. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how long it takes to work but have not had much luck. The problem is there’s been a problem on the Red Line most mornings when I go to work. One day it’s smoke in a station another a sick passenger. It means having to deal with large crowds on the platform at Rhode Island Avenue. It means trains pulling into the station with no room for any additional passengers. The couple of times I’ve really left early to avoid being late there of course has been no delay at all. I just sail straight into work.

This is of course not really all that much of a problem compared to some of the really problems Metro has caused. The best example is when the New York Avenue Metro stop was added. What was done was add a station between the Union Station stop and Rhode Island Avenue stop. The delays of service on weekends were terrible. The best one was that one Labor Day weekend the Rhode Island stop was going to be closed all three days. Signs were posted informing riders of this the Thursday before the Labor Day weekend. Talk about giving people advanced notice.

So I guess the thing to do is leave a little earlier than normal and hope things get better. One can hope.

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