A Metro Love story

Awww, read this and you'll be even more happy today besides the fact that it is Friday. 

It makes me smile to read about other people's happiness and reminds me of my own proposal and love story :) Ours was on a beach since my husband knew I loved beaches and it was my first time on a Florida gulf beach -- beautiful! Only downside was that it was August and SUPER hot. Still, it obviously ended well and it's nice to talk about and relive that moment together. 

Can we go back? Pretty please?!? :)

There are certainly cute ways to get engaged these days -- flash mobs, jumbo-trons, romantic dinners, and it can definitely lead to creative wedding theme ideas -- I especially like the Metro-themed tables at the end of the article -- delays of your meals are bound to ensue!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Um, no thanks.

So I've posted before about paying for Metro, waiting for a train for 10 minutes, only to leave the Metro and still paying $2.15. Well, I did that again today, but only waited about a minute before I made the decision to back up and leave.

I arrived in Union Station from my MARC train and walked to the Metro without checking my e-mail for alerts <--foreshadow: that was a mistake. I entered the turnstiles, registered my card and saw all the people at the top of the escalator looking down on the platform at all the OTHER (ahem, a lot) people waiting for trains. That was all I needed. I immediately turned around and walked back out the turnstiles to walk the .9miles to work. 

Oy, when will Metro get something to alert people as they enter the station BEFORE they pay for their entry? Also, I wondered if there was a grace period about entering and exiting a station within a minute if you don't get charged...my initial research came up with one of my favorite Traffic bloggers in the area, Dr. Gridlock, and something he posted about it in 2010:

Q: If you enter a Metro station and see that the platforms are overcrowded, etc., and then just turn around and go back into the office, you are charged for entering/exiting the same station (minimum fare).

Metro claims that they do this so as to prevent a conspiracy of two people exchanging farecards/SmarTrip cards and then entering/exiting "same" station. The problem with this response is that there is still a monetary incentive to do this type of conspiracy because of the the distance charge.

Furthermore, couldn't metro just have a 10-minute grace period of entering/exiting same station? You go in and realize it's terrible. Or, they could just apply zero charge for entering/exiting station to SmarTrip cards and have triggers whereby it's not allowed more than X number of times per month. Can we just get Metro to admit that they are just trying to get more money out of us even when they have disaster days (not uncommon)?

A: I think what Metro should do is make sure that its station managers are alert enough to discover problems on their platforms and have the means to quickly post signs warning incoming riders about severe delays.

Right now, riders don't necessarily have a way of knowing what's going on before they see the platform. (We talked about this a moment ago regarding the lack of consistent e-alerts about disruptions.)

Source: http://live.washingtonpost.com/gridlock-1025.html 

So it appears you do get charged (at least back in 2010) and they still HAVEN'T found a way to know about delays before you pay to enter the station! Grrr...just another fun day as a Metro rider in DC.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

I'm not leaving today, but last weekend, we left for New York! We stayed with friends in Baltimore to catch the train out of Penn Station there and had a very early wake-up call to do so that Friday morning. 

Our Amtrak experience was stupendous -- it was my husband's first time on the Northeast regional and probably my third or fourth time. It's so simple and easy to take the train. Honestly, I would take trains more often when I travel vs. planes if I had the time. 

Once we arrived in New York, we were off! We did some brief sight-seeing in Midtown, but soon took the 4 or 5 express down to Bowling Green to catch a ferry over to Ellis Island. That was one of my requests since I hadn't been there in my few times to New York. [Fun fact: Suspicious packages apparently gets one  stuck on Ellis Island for a short amount of time because all the ferries are evacuating people from Liberty Island, where said suspicious package is spotted. Yay! Us native DC-er's weren't actually phased too much by this and were more inconvenienced about the timing of it all -- it was lunchtime! We seriously considered taking a ferry to NJ and a PATH train back to Manhattan but alas, it all worked out.] 

Skyline from the Ferry. 

After we made our way back across to Manhattan, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed over to the World Trade Center and 9/11 memorials and Museum. We ended up not being able to get into the Museum due to timed tickets, but walked around the beautiful fountains they've created for each of the two former towers. From there, we walked a bit, checked out Freedom Tower and caught the A or C train back uptown to Penn Station where we had stashed our bags. [Another fun fact: if you ride Amtrak, it only costs $5 per bag + tax to stow your bag at Penn Station in NYC -- totally worth it if you ask me!]

We were staying in Brooklyn, so now we had to get back downtown on the R or N lines. Now this is where I went wrong and where the NYC subway system completely baffles me. When just looking at a New York City Subway map, I saw both lines and assumed they both stopped at our stop on 25th Street. So we got on an N train, realizing about 2 minutes into the ride, we actually needed an R train, so go off at Union Square to wait for one. Now that I look, and as the weekend progressed, I learned to actually look at the station stop and see what letter was below it before figuring out which train to take. 

The other issue was there was some track work going on when we were there so were impacted by which station we could access on Saturday and Sunday...i.e. not the one closest to our hotel and instead had to walk about 11 blocks SOUTH to go uptown to Manhattan. Live and learn, I suppose. 

On Saturday, we ventured south in Brooklyn to Coney Island and Brighton Beach -- how fun! It is quite a hike from even where we were staying in Brooklyn, but totally worth the time, if you have it, to see such  iconic and diverse places. From there, we went back up to Manhattan on the Q line to go to the Met. Again, I think we transferred at Union Square to catch a 4, 5, or 6 to get off at the 86th Street stop. No major problems here. Again some track work was impacting stations that were not open, but other than that, we were OK on our route.

Then after an afternoon of art viewing, with an evening of Pastrami eating and visiting with old friends, we caught the 6 train back downtown for transfer back over to an R or N train to 36th Street in Brooklyn. It took some time, but we made it back to our hotel alright. 

The next morning, we had an early train out of Penn so took an N train from our hotel up to 34th street/Herald Square and walked a few blocks over to the train station. Overall, I feel much more comfortable navigating the Subway in NYC -- the express vs. local trains always messed with my brain, but now they make more sense, but I'm sure unless I did it everyday, I'm always going to be double and triple checking lines and stops each time I visit there. At least now I know I could figure it out on my own and probably not end up in Queens or at LaGuardia unintentionally. 

Anyway, until next time, you big concrete jungle apple.

Iconic Grand Central Station.

No, you're the worst!

So I've returned from the Big Apple and will definitely blog about it here soon, but in the meantime, I read this article in the Washington Post today that seems appropriate for my recent trip and my new love of public transit visits to other cities!

I do think above all, DC has one of the cleanest public transit systems in the country and it's not as bad as people think it is in terms of delays, track issues, etc.. Even with all my complaining, I still ride it and support its improvement and upkeep! 

Overall, the DC Metro definitely has more challenges than other cities do in working with two different states, the Federal government and all the jurisdictions it reaches in its 117-mile radial span. Funding, maintenance, emergencies, infrastructure, and expansion planning all can be put to a halt by one of the governing bodies, no matter how good of an idea it truly is. Ugh -- politics!

NY, NY

I'm headed to New York City this weekend for the first time in 2 years and the first time since I started this blog, so we'll see if I have any travel woes or issues getting there (via Amtrak train) or around the city (yay, subway!) I'm staying in Brooklyn so there will definitely be some public transit going on and hopefully, there is success!

See ya on the flip side, Tina!

Good morning

So today, I walked to work. No, not the whole way from my house to Washington. I decided to make the trek from Union Station to my work. I sometimes do this, especially as the weather gets warmer or I am able to catch an earlier train. It's only about a mile and when the weather is nice, it's a pretty decent way to wake myself up after the lull of the train, or just get some fresh air and exercise. 

I typically walk along Massachusetts Avenue which is going through a lot of change and construction up at the 395 interchange. I write this post not because it has something to do with transit (it does, a little...) but because there's another reason I enjoy the walk to work when I do it.

Just past Union Station, if you exit to the west side of the station, along Mass. Ave. on the Postal Museum side of the street, there usually (if not always) sits a man greeting everyone who walks by. "Good morning, young lady. How you doing? Have a nice day!" And it's said with probably the biggest smile I've ever seen. He never asks for anything, he just wants to offer up his happy outlook of the day laid before us all. 

And you know, sometimes in life, it's easy to rush by, ignore the hello or questions from the folks you'll pass in any city setting, but when I make that walk from Union Station to my work down Mass. Ave., it makes my day to see him and hear his voice. And you know what else I've learned? I've learned that saying "Hi! Good morning. You too!" back makes him smile even bigger. 

Maybe one day I'll stop and ask his name, take his picture so you too can see his smile, or perhaps the anonymity of it is what makes it so pure and genuine. I wish we all, all the time, could stop and say hello back to whomever is speaking to us. I wish it weren't strange to do so, or our lives less hectic than just trying to rush along to the next thing on the schedule. 

Anyway, I write about this because even though I commute on mass public transit, and the mornings and evenings are typically fast-paced and hurried, that sometimes by getting to and from work this way, makes me, at least, stop and think about the larger picture of life and how we all operate in this world day to day. And the brightest spot of this continually spinning journey is sometimes just a simple "Good morning". 

Not my fault

You know what's not my fault? You not getting up when the doors open at a Metro station you need to get off at and it's rush hour. You waiting 5-10 seconds AFTER the doors open and then trying to push your way through all the people trying to board the train at a busy platform is not my fault. It's DEFINITELY not my fault that I saw you coming, turned around to see if I could step back on the platform to give you room and all I see is a sea of people rushing towards the interior of the Metro car. Eventually I am able to clear room to get back on the platform, out of the Metro car, so you may exit. Also, not my fault. But you felt it necessary to yell, in a not-so-nice tone, "EXCUSE ME!" like it WAS my fault.

I'll chock it up to a bad morning for you. Even a bad week perhaps. So, I'll forgive you for placing undue blame on me, the simple Local-motive Girl just trying to get to work on a Thursday.