The blue line was no better
I left the Mall around six p.m. Trying to get out through the Smithsonian station was impossible, for reasons I’ll detail in a blog post later today. I walked up to Fed Triangle to find police directing pedestrians into a line that wound all the way to the Reagan building. Deciding I’d rather walk than wait, I made my way up past Metro Center to MacPherson Square and found much the same thing. I skipped the crowd and hoofed it up to Farragut West at 17th and Eye.
The crowd there wasn’t too bad, but the trains had to be seen to be believed. It was like a Tokyo rush hour in there, with riders packed elbow-to-eyeball in every car on every train.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, at least half of the riders on my train went all the way to the end of the line, Franconia-Springfield, no doubt taking advantage of the gianormous parking deck next to that station platform.
Judging by how many of the riders were stymied by the turnstiles as they tried to exit the station, I can only imagine the horror that must have ensued when they realized they couldn’t leave the garage without a SmartTrip card.
The trains at quarter to 6:00 were pretty bad – but I have to say, people in this city don’t know how to pack it in.
While the one I got on was decently cozy, the one before it(which I wasn’t able to squeeze onto) wasn’t very full at all. Why? Because people refuse to move to the aisles, insisting on standing close to the doors. There were cars on the train that could have held another 20-odd people, at least. All it takes is some manuevering, people.
More ridiculous was the woman who shoved her way onto the train behind me, and then realized that she was feeling claustrophobic, prompting her to shove her way to the other door, where she got off at Foggy Bottom.
If you ever find yourself on the platform watching a seemingly angry man actually pound on the train window and yell and gesture at the JERKS WHO CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO MOVE TO THE CENTER OF THE TRAIN AND MAKE ROOM FOR OTHERS, come say hello – I’m pretty nice when I’m not yelling.
Don – If I ever see you on the platform performing the above action, rest assured that I will join you. If our actions prove futile, we can say to hell with it and go for a drink.
But honestly, the metro isn’t usually that crowded, and I get off between 5:30 and 6:00. Granted, it would be less crowded if people knew how to stand in cars, not to mention had the ability to see that a 4 car train is coming and move accordingly, instead of making a mad rush for the back car as it’s pulling into the station.
I just saw today on metropensdoors site that the immigration rally ranked as the 2nd highest ridership day behind the reagan funeral.
“The immigration rally on the National Mall yesterday set the second highest ridership day in Metrorail’s 30-year-history. Regular riders and protesters took 821,283 trips. An additional 137,234 people boarded trains compared to a typical Monday last month. Combined with Metrobus ridership, Metro provided nearly 1.3 million trips yesterday. Typical weekday bus ridership has been about 451,000 trips.”