Traveling public in DC
Pride is omnipresent in US culture. Hence it is not surprising that the Washingtonians are very proud of their metro. The third largest in the country. I have to admit that it is a very clean and somewhat stylish system they have. And since Seba and I have the privilege to consider ourselves part of the group of red line snobs, we should not have any reason to complain. (But since I take those US citizens very serious who believe that only the almighty US can offer quality of life, I find lots of reasons to complain.) You do not know what a red line snob is? Well, the red line is the main line in the five line DC metro network. All you need for a decent city life is located somewhere along the red line. Hence, all people living within walking distance to the red line are so called red line snobs, while all the other poor buggers have to accept the inferior service of the other lines. The red line has the tightest schedule and the longest trains. That reduces waiting times in stations and allows you to breath in trains during rush hours - as long as things go as planned. However, very often things do not go as planned. Delays on the DC metro are as common as rain in Switzerland during summer 2007* For some reason it seems impossible to do track maintenance or train testings during the night, when the metro is closed. It is no problem to buy milk around the clock, but working on the metro during the night seems unthinkable. Plus, frequent break downs of trains raises questions about the maintenance. Usually information is scarce when there are problems on the network, and even if they announce something, one has no chance to understand a thing due to the horrible sound quality of the PA system in the metro.
What strikes me even more is the number of elevators and escalators that are out of service every day. The information boards usually switch back and forth between a long list of outages and the arrival of the next train. To reduce the pain for handicapped people, Metro usually offers a shuttle service, which is a car or a bus that pick you up at the station where the outage occurred and brings you to another station where things are ok. Pretty nifty. But I have not talked to anyone yet, who actually used this service.
It seems that like many other parts of the countries infrastructure, the DC metro does not have enough funds to regularly maintain the trains and tracks. Hence we are faced with a considerable increase in fares as of January 2008. Maybe that helps to reduce incidents like the other weeks, where several lines had to be closed due to fires caused by failing electrical infrastructure.
Even more interesting is the bus system. I could not recognize a pattern yet on how the bus routes are designed. Buses run allover the city, many lines even the entire night all week long.
But to be honest, I can understand why people prefer other modes of transportation. Many bus drivers would rather drive in NASCAR or in the F1. Slamming the gas or the break pedal in very fast intervals makes sitting on a bus as pleasant a drive as sitting on a roller coaster. This combined with the bad road conditions in some parts of the city make a metro bus ride a sickening experience at times - literally speaking.
The good thing when using the bus: there is a bus stop almost in every block. The bad thing when sitting on a bus: there is a bloody bus stop almost in every single block. Adding the lack of preferential treatment of buses at intersections or designated bus lanes make a ride worthwhile for people with looots of time. You are in a hurry? Then stay away from the DC buses...
The funniest experience I had so far happened some time ago. Sitting in the small Ride-On bus (that's the name for buses in the neighboring Montgomery county) alone with the driver, he all of a sudden asked me, whether he has to do a certain part of the route, which they only serve in the evening.
The guy did not know where he had to drive... Of course I was flattered that I had the privilege to answer him his question. How did I know? I didn't of course, but it shortened my ride by five minutes...
There are no ticket machines at the bus stops. Instead you pay when you get in. Exact change only. 1.25 if you hop on for the first time, 0.35 when you come from the metro and can show a transfer, which you should have taken at the metro station where you entered the metro or nothing when you have bus transfer ticket, which you get when you pay on your first bus ride of the day. However, no discount applies, when you enter the metro coming from a bus. Confused? Well, so was I. And so seem the bus drivers as I ride for free quite frequently: the drivers are at times too lazy to punch a hole in my ticket or the machines do not work.
But then again, being a spoiled brat from Switzerland, where hundreds of millions are invested into public transportation every year, I should definitely lower my standards - even in the capital of the richest country on earth. Unlike Europe, subsidizing public transportation is not a priority here. It shows - no matter how proud the Washingtonians are about their public transportation system.
What strikes me even more is the number of elevators and escalators that are out of service every day. The information boards usually switch back and forth between a long list of outages and the arrival of the next train. To reduce the pain for handicapped people, Metro usually offers a shuttle service, which is a car or a bus that pick you up at the station where the outage occurred and brings you to another station where things are ok. Pretty nifty. But I have not talked to anyone yet, who actually used this service.
It seems that like many other parts of the countries infrastructure, the DC metro does not have enough funds to regularly maintain the trains and tracks. Hence we are faced with a considerable increase in fares as of January 2008. Maybe that helps to reduce incidents like the other weeks, where several lines had to be closed due to fires caused by failing electrical infrastructure.
Even more interesting is the bus system. I could not recognize a pattern yet on how the bus routes are designed. Buses run allover the city, many lines even the entire night all week long.
But to be honest, I can understand why people prefer other modes of transportation. Many bus drivers would rather drive in NASCAR or in the F1. Slamming the gas or the break pedal in very fast intervals makes sitting on a bus as pleasant a drive as sitting on a roller coaster. This combined with the bad road conditions in some parts of the city make a metro bus ride a sickening experience at times - literally speaking.The good thing when using the bus: there is a bus stop almost in every block. The bad thing when sitting on a bus: there is a bloody bus stop almost in every single block. Adding the lack of preferential treatment of buses at intersections or designated bus lanes make a ride worthwhile for people with looots of time. You are in a hurry? Then stay away from the DC buses...
The funniest experience I had so far happened some time ago. Sitting in the small Ride-On bus (that's the name for buses in the neighboring Montgomery county) alone with the driver, he all of a sudden asked me, whether he has to do a certain part of the route, which they only serve in the evening.
The guy did not know where he had to drive... Of course I was flattered that I had the privilege to answer him his question. How did I know? I didn't of course, but it shortened my ride by five minutes...There are no ticket machines at the bus stops. Instead you pay when you get in. Exact change only. 1.25 if you hop on for the first time, 0.35 when you come from the metro and can show a transfer, which you should have taken at the metro station where you entered the metro or nothing when you have bus transfer ticket, which you get when you pay on your first bus ride of the day. However, no discount applies, when you enter the metro coming from a bus. Confused? Well, so was I. And so seem the bus drivers as I ride for free quite frequently: the drivers are at times too lazy to punch a hole in my ticket or the machines do not work.
But then again, being a spoiled brat from Switzerland, where hundreds of millions are invested into public transportation every year, I should definitely lower my standards - even in the capital of the richest country on earth. Unlike Europe, subsidizing public transportation is not a priority here. It shows - no matter how proud the Washingtonians are about their public transportation system.
Klodynis - 2007-10-09 02:10
