Showing Metro’s True Colors

by Mike Plunkett

Green means go. Red means stop. Metro means pulling stupid tourists out of non-retractable doors.

Timing the chimes between the pleasant androgynous voice stating “Doors closing” and the really pissed-off operator screaming “Customers, please use the 24 other doors and don’t crowd into just one!” is an art, and one that I am still trying to perfect. The doors aren’t like elevators: they don’t sense when there’s property, possessions or persons lodged in their openings. Once closed, they take what seems to be an exorbitant amount of effort to reopen. If this is beginning to sound like a keen metaphor on how Washington works, it’s because the doors to the White House are equally non-retractable.

Most locals can pull it off but, trust me, tourists can’t. The worst are the really nice people who have bothered a) Metro police and b) random businesspersons, and ask the guy with the Azusa Pacific University backpack and iPod (read: me) about what station they’re at and how to get to point X. They’re the ones that get stuck in the door, and usually the Metro trains don’t move when tourists can’t decide whether to be inside or outside. Besides, the doors will open eventually. It just usually constitutes a malfunction, and if there’s a malfunction then there are delays for everyone.

Green means haul ass. Red means floor it. Metro means another damn delay.

Give or take five delays, the electronic signage at each boarding platform provides the latest details of what trains are arriving and when. Signs inform passengers their line is under scheduled maintenance; another suffers from an earlier malfunction; a third had a tourist stuck in the doors; and this line went WEEEEEE all the way home. The same sign also encourages passengers to go to www.metroopensdoors.com to get the latest information; but alas, there’s no phone reception until you get above the ground. (Somehow Verizon tends to work best in the Metro; but alas, Verizon doesn’t work well anywhere else.)

The Washington Metro Authority also permits advertisements to be played between some of the Metro stops. They show up on the sidewalls. It’s a bit weird: once you’re convinced that it’s not the booze or the “Southwest Surprise” you had for dinner at Dupont Circle, you tell your friend. He looks over, but the ad is gone and he’s convinced you’re drunker than you originally said you were and therefore, is pretty mad to be riding the Metro instead of driving his Zipcar.com vehicle.

Green means going to Branch Avenue. Red means hitting up Adams Morgan. Metro means making sure not to fall asleep on the train Friday night unless you want to be rudely awakened by Metro police.

My compadre Tony Chavira has gone exploring on L.A. public transportation routes in his Trip the Light Rail series. His thesis that a light rail system can create the connectivity that Los Angeles lacks is well-taken. Look no further for proof than the District, where the Metro system actually saved the city, ’60s-era carpet aside. Envisioned as an alternative to the busy highways of the late ’50s, the rail transit system connects the D.C. dots.

As a side note, I would be amiss not to point out the two dots that stick out like a sore, shut-down Starbucks. Since Metro’s inception, architects and engineers have labored for a way to connect the neighborhoods of Georgetown north, to the National Cathedral, to the system. There is the typical “rich people who don’t want public transportation in their neighborhood” sector, but no one has come up with a way to meander the Potomac without intrusion that is hurtful instead of indifferent. Some very long-term plans incorporate a monorail-esque system, the same concept that was proposed for the longed-for Silver Line, which connects northern Northern Virginia (the fastest-growing area in the Greater Washington area) to the Orange Line (the most-congested Metro line in D.C.). If you’re interested in more details, David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington has created the 2030 Metro map that I’m hoping will be adopted.

As it stands now, trying to drive on D.C. streets during the week is akin to the 101/110 interchange, complete with pedestrians and bureaucrats eschewing the walk sign, going as the jaywalking gods compel them. I feel like I’m The Fugitive, trying to chase the One-Armed Man while being hunted by Tommy Lee Jones. Combine this with the circular nightmare of the Beltway, driving on D.C. freeways is only getting worse and rapidly sliding down the levels of Purgatory.

Sadly, the debate about public transit and the Metro continues. After some begging and pleading and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn releasing one of his more than 100 legislative holds, Metro received $1.5 billion dollars for needed repairs. Construction is beginning on new high-occupancy toll roads on the most congested areas of the Beltway. Toll roads are already in place near Dulles Airport, and this will create another revenue stream for the city. Well, technically, another revenue stream for the Capitol. So, technically, these toll roads will pay for the widening of L.A. freeways. Please, don’t thank me. I don’t drive.

Green means money. Red means bureaucracy. Metro means it’s another 30 years until I can get to Chevy Chase, Maryland without walking five miles uphill in the snow.

WEEEEEE.

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