Your Metro is Awesome. (Washington: crime, hotel, maintenance)
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I just got back from my time in DC this past weekend. I was staying in a hotel in the West End near the Foggy Bottom/George Washington Univ. Stop.
As a New Yorker, I have to compliment your Metro system and how great it is. While I'm not a big fan of the distance based fares, the "tap-in/tap-out" and the somewhat poor lighting in some stations, I was thoroughly impressed by how CLEAN it was. It was close to spotless: no tags, no scratches, no trash in the stations or the trains. Also, I was really taken aback by just the size of some of the stations. I really like those gargantuan, cavernous underground stations and those mega-deep escalators. I got off at Dupont Circle one day and thought about walking out but changed my mind when I saw how long the escalator was.
Thumbs WAY up from this New Yorker. I wish our system was a clean as yours.
I just got back from my time in DC this past weekend. I was staying in a hotel in the West End near the Foggy Bottom/George Washington Univ. Stop.
As a New Yorker, I have to compliment your Metro system and how great it is. While I'm not a big fan of the distance based fares, the "tap-in/tap-out" and the somewhat poor lighting in some stations, I was thoroughly impressed by how CLEAN it was. It was close to spotless: no tags, no scratches, no trash in the stations or the trains. Also, I was really taken aback by just the size of some of the stations. I really like those gargantuan, cavernous underground stations and those mega-deep escalators. I got off at Dupont Circle one day and thought about walking out but changed my mind when I saw how long the escalator was.
Thumbs WAY up from this New Yorker. I wish our system was a clean as yours.
I'm guessing you didn't ride the metro much at night or at weekends. 15 plus minute waits are common at those times. I would give up the cleanliness of DC in return for the frequent train arrivals of New York any day.
I don't use a metro system for eating off of it. I use it for getting me from place to place in a timely efficient fashion. Outside of rush hour commuting, for which it is pretty fast (generally), the DC metro fails in this regard.
I think the NY system is way more efficient than the DC system. I wish the DC system had the 24 hour service that you have in NY. And express service...that would be a dream to have in DC, but alas, the infrastructure just isn't there.
Thanks for the compliments, but I think NY and Boston have it together on a whole other level.
A trivia fact: the Wheaton, Maryland metro station has the second-tallest escalator in the world, only exceeded by an escalator on the Moscow metro system in Russia. The local Rosslyn and Dupont Circle metro escalators rank close behind.
Metro purposely designed its station walls far out of reach, behind concrete barriers, so that graffiti artists can't touch them.
Our system's biggest problems are the dozens of escalators which are often out of service for many months at a time. And also that recently, trains are often delayed greatly on weekends due to the need for track maintenance. Also, increasing thefts / snatching of personal electronic devices from passengers.
Ok, lived in NY for 20+ years and VA/DC for 10 and NY subway is absolutely light years ahead of metro!! First, the idiots who run it are clueless! They need serious help from NY. They have little to no dedicated police force for the trains so crime is a huge problem. Those big escalators, along with many others in metro don't work half the time, so imagine having to walk up out of that large escalator! The prices are to high, yet they never seem to have enough money to do anything. They had the worst subway train accident in the history of the US a few years back...the list goes on and on. I'm not saying NY or anyone else is perfect, but metro is one of the worst! Only thing they got going is the clean and that is only b/c they banned food and drinks. (they are real quick to jump on you and give a ticket for that but feel free to snatch someone's iPhone).
Now try commuting with it for several months. The clean factor starts to lose its power as you realize the rest of the system is pretty abysmal at times.
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