Its worse than cicadas.... its tourists

So I'm finally back in town and not on the road. My first day back in the office was yesterday. My fiance had to do something at work early so I had the pleasure of riding the bus and the train both to work and home again. The bus rides are never bad. Mostly because its full of locals and I think tourists are afraid of riding the bus. That being said, the Metro was full of tourists and commuters at 8:30 this morning.

I have decided that tourists and commuters are like oil and water. Try as you may to shake them up and get them to mix, in the end they separate and go their own way. Its still early in tourist season so commuters are still a bit polite and tourists haven't taken over the city like a swarm of cicadas. But unlike cicadas, tourists don't visit for 2 weeks then die, they keep coming back. More and more of them. From now until what feels like Labor Day.

My saving grace for yesterday was that the A/C worked in my Metro car.

My saving grace for today was that the A/C worked and the other commuters wore deodorant today.

You move and you get a while new perspective

So I haven't posted in a while. I'll try to be better about updating this blog. Since I last posted I moved and have a new commute into work. In the mornings I drive in with my fiance. Take the train from his office to my office. At night I take the train to the Pentagon then catch a bus home. Usually I'll catch a DASH bus, but one unfortunate morning I had to take a Metro Bus home. I will avoid that at all costs form this point forward. The driver almost missed one woman's stop, despite the fact she had pulled the stop cord. He got into a pissing fight with a Dominion Power car in front of him and he LAID on his horn when someone didn't move fast enough. I short toot would have sufficed, but a full 20 seconds was uncalled for. Never have I been so grateful to be off a mode of transportation. Wow!

You can ride on top?

So this morning there was an issue of sorts that required a disabled train and the recovery train to off load at Reagan.

Granted off loading a train is never fun. Especially when you are off loaded at an outdoor station in the humidity of a DC summer.

So as I got on to the yellow line train at Braddock I heard a mumbled explanation over the speaker (because really you can never understand what they say). Still had no idea what was going on. It wasn't until we were stopped outside of Reagan that I heard about the disabled train and the recovery train having to off load.

My vent today is this. As we pulled into each of the stations (Reagan, Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Pentagon)the conductor told the train that it was a crowded platform and to make room. Once in the station the conductor announced to the platform that the on-coming riders should spread out and use all doors. But that never happens. Instead people stay put and force their way on. I understand the frustration of off loading and how that can make one late for work. However, if you don't fit, you don't fit. No amount of pushing and shoving is going to let you fit on the train.

I have to thank the people who stood near the center doors on my train this morning. They were sort of governing the chaos and told people when they wouldn't fit. One guy started to shove his way on. Another passenger said to him, loud enough for the car to hear, "You aren't going to fit. But you can ride on top of us if you'd like to try". The car laughed, the guy stepped off the car and away we could go.

In addition, people to not like to step behind the rumble strips at the edge of a plat form., Maybe they want to die or be struck by a train. But at Pentagon City this morning we had to proceed very slowly out of the station because people were all up on the rumble strip.

Just ugh!

Well if they aren't running at full capacity then no one can die right?

Snowpocalypse 2010 came and went Friday into Saturday. Alexandria got roughly 17" of snow. Places north of DC were averaging 25" of powder. As a result of all the snow Metro closed all its above ground Metro stations. Meaning that instead of looking like this:



It looks like this:



All the washed out/gray areas... yeah that's where Metro usually has service but to to the +8" of snow, there is no rail service. Where there is Metro service they started late (7am instead of 5am) and are closing a bit early.

Plus the roads are so bad MetroAccess isn't running and MetroBus is only on the snow emergency roads. Snow emergency roads are about the only roads that have been plowed.

Even better is they are expecting another 8-10" tomorrow night.

UGH!

Not even the end of January

Here we are 26 days into 2010 and 2 workers were killed working on the metro. Bringing the death total for 2010 to 3 people. One woman was struck by a train on 1/4/10. I have to go back and check but 2009 I think killed over 20 (employees, passengers and suicides). Will 2010 surpass that? Who knows?

For more info on the recent deaths go here: http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1873224&nid=25

For a list of Metro employee deaths go here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/01/26/GR2010012600926.html (4 in 2009)

Not for the faint of stomach

*********WARNING*********

If you get queezy at throw-up or the thought of others throwing up.... STOP READING NOW!!!!

Okay, now that I have that out of the way. Today was day 2 back in the office after vacation. I'm still in that vacation frame of mind, so while work does not bother me...Metro still does.

I arrive at my station this morning and see my blue line train go by, meaning I will be taking the yellow line into work. I recently downloaded "I AM" from Michael Tolcher (he was on The Rock Boat... aka my vacation) so having to walk from Mt. Vernon would be accompanied by good music.

While I had my walk ahead of me I still needed to get on the train. As I climbed the escalator my yellow line train arrived. I get down the platform to hop on the train only to find a cone blocking the door. I thought that odd, until I got closer. (If you didn't heed the warning before, now is the time to skip to the next set of ***). When I got to the cone I looked down only to find someone lost their breakfast on the platform. From the looks of it I hope it didn't happen in the doorway of a train. But given where the train stopped... I'm guessing it happened. What annoyed me more is that no one cleaned up the mess. Just a cone to hopefully prevent people from walking through it. ***

Thanks for reading!
Happy Thursday!

Back to the daily grind...

So this morning was odd. I arrived at the station only to find that the turnstiles were without power. So up the escalator I went. I got a seat on the blue line and dealt and thought that was easy. Then I got off the train. I hate people who are not cognizant of their belongings. If you push me out of the way with your gym bag... I reserve the right to push you out of the way.

What really peeved me was the lack of communication between stations. My station had no power... but McPherson did. I was going to run into trouble at the turnstile. Yet, McPherson seemed to not know this was going on. As a result I got delayed slightly... but got a free ride to work this morning.

Only two more mornings of this... then VACATION!!!