I have been a Metro commuter for over 10 months now. The first 9 months were glorious - we lived on the Yellow line which is the least crowded and newest of the Metro lines. I got on at the second stop in the morning so I always got a seat. Time on the train was less than 20 minutes as I only had six stops to work. Then we got the crazy idea to move to a house off of the Orange line. As much as I love our house we are renting, I am starting to think we had a moment of temporary insanity because in 1.5 months as an Orange line commuter, I have had some bad commutes to and from work. But nothing I had experienced previously (not even having to offload due to a broken door two weeks ago) was anything as horrible as what I experienced this morning.
I got to East Falls Church Metro station after walking in the pouring rain and found the platform at 7:45 am unusually crowded. Wait more than 5 minutes for a train which shows up incredibly packed (literally almost no one on the EFC platform could get on) - EFC is only fourth stop in the morning and while I typically can't get a seat, they never show up that crowded. Wait for the next train which comes suspiciously less than 2 minutes later. I should have known this was an omen. Get on the train which isn't super crowded and find a place to stand and start reading the paper. Get to Ballston. People pile on and then annoucement comes on that we are going to hold at the station. We are told by the driver that the delay is due to a "track problem" outside of Federal Triange. Federal Triangle is literally like in the middle of the city and I have to go past it one stop to Smithsonian for my office. This process repeats at the next three stations. At one station we hold for over 20 minutes in an incredibly packed train. I was starting to get really hot. At that point, I decided to get off at the next station and go a roundabout way to get to work as I knew if I stayed on the train I wouldn't get to work until 10 am most likely. Got off at Rosslyn (once we made it there) and switched to the Blue line towards Virginia. I went two stops and got off at Pentagon to switch to the Yellow line towards DC. Thankfully getting off at Rosslyn worked to my favor because I walked right onto a Blue line train and then right onto the Yellow line train. Total commute time today was 90 minutes...45-50 minutes longer than usual. I am still trying to find out what this mysterious "track problem" was that caused trains in both directions (Blue and Orange lines) to single track.
Literally this was the worst commute ever. At least I was not on any of the Orange line trains that had to offload due to broken doors or hold even longer because of sick passengers which is what happened to some trains this morning. The best part - When I left for the Metro it was dark, windy and pouring rain. When I got off the Metro at L'Enfant Plaza, it was sunny and very pleasant out. It took me so long to get to work, the weather completely changed! Thanks Metro!
If you want to see pictures of what some of the Metro stations looked like this morning, go to http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com.
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