Monday is the worse possible day of the week, and it was on a Monday that DC metro pushed me to physical and mental limits. As soon as I arrived at my home station (Waterfront-SEU), there were delays because of “a sick customer”. I’m not really buying the sick customer story. I’ve been riding metro for almost four years and never experienced a train that had a sick customer. There were trains that stopped working all of a sudden…
The delay was at L’Enfant Plaza and the trains at Waterfront would share a single track. No one on the platform got that but me and a few other people-that our train would be arriving on the other platform.
To make matters worse, a green line train went back to Waterfront to unload. Hundreds of us stood on the platform, so I tried to strategically place myself so I’d be close to the door when the train arrived. All of this while hearing a woman complain and say, “I’m going home then! I’m going home!”
I got on the train and things ran as usual. There was the crowded train, the people standing at the door that weren’t getting off the train any time soon, the tourists standing in the middle of the platform trying to figure out which side to get off on, etc. And my personal favorite: there was the crowded platform at Gallery Place Chinatown on the Shady Grove platform. (I’m going to do another blog a posting about this travesty.)
When I got to my destination, Dupont Circle, things got a lot worse. The escalator going up was broken, and we all had to walk up (unless we decided to take the elevator that may or may not be out.) I decided to take the stairs to get a workout. I ended up knocking a lady over that was carrying a lot of bags and stopped abruptly while the rest of us were still walking. I was pushed to my physical limits. Breathing hard and sweating, shaky legs and pulsing, I arrived at work safely - barely.
Lessons Learned: (1) Be sure that you have multiple routes to get to your destination. (I have the luxury of living near three metro stations—four metro lines.) (2) Exercise to build up your endurance and stamina because metro will make you walk. If it’s not the broken escalator, it could be that the train at the only station you can use isn’t working and you have to walk to another station.
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