Hmph. In my day, we had to walk twelve miles, butt naked, uphill, while people threw rotting garbage at us! And when we got to the ballpark, Ty Cobb would thrash us within an inch of our lives! Then we had to sit on rusty razor blades, facing away from the field! Then, after the game, we had to crawl on our hands and knees back home, only to have our old man slice us up into little pieces with a carving knife!

Also, the selection of microbrews at the park was somewhat disappointing.

Not too many other cities have the same issue. They either don't have Metro-type systems (non bus, actually goes to a significant number of places) or the ones they have run later already.

Running trains increases the chances of an accident, you know. Best to shut them down early, just to make sure.

Ahhh, the good ol Metro...one of the primary reasons I absolutely had to get out of DC as soon as law school was over.

I like the Metro. I don't visit DC all that often (my sister lives there so I visit some) and it is much better than the average cities mass transit.

Metro is pretty good, but it closes too early. Probably will take one or more negative incidents regarding someone walking home from a late game to get the US gov't to cough up the money for this. Unfortunately.

How late is "late"?

I just assumed it just some kind of human rights issue to synch up mass transit timetables and bar closures. It can't be healthy living in a city that doesn't accommodate you getting absolutely ####-faced on a Tuesday evening.

Probably will take one or more negative incidents regarding someone walking home from a late game to get the US gov't to cough up the money for this.

The feds aren't responsible for Metro. The funding comes from D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and of course the riders.

There is a precedent that the Redskins, Capitals, and Wizards have paid the thirty grand to keep the trains running late on occasion. But the latest news is that supposedly MLB has told the Nationals not to pay. I'm not sure what would stop the Lerners from doing it if they really wanted to though.

Philadelphia and Boston have rail systems that don't operate 24 hours. What happened in those cities' situations when postseason play came and games ended late? I assume those services didn't close down; did the Phils and Bosox pay, and if not, who reimbursed those systems?

Given the amount of ridership to the games on Septa, I wouldn't be surprised if the routes were profitable to keep open, so they may have just done it on their own. Or the Phillies paid. I don't know.

Jayson Werth can hire shuttle buses for us all.

The subway in Boston runs until about 12:45 so even with the ridiculous length of post season games it wasn't much of an issue.

I like the Metro. I don't visit DC all that often (my sister lives there so I visit some) and it is much better than the average cities mass transit.

It's actually one of the very, very few things done well by the government in DC -- the reason is probably because it's heavily used by lawmakers, politicians, and lobbyists (i.e. the powerbrokers of the town) who both need to get around all over the downtown on a daily basis and escape to the Montgomery County and Fairfax/Arlington Co. suburbs when it's over. (Meanwhile, they don't give a sh*t about the buses or even most of the roads for that matter, hence their comparative decrepitude.) It's reasonably clean, safe, and although it's getting more expensive it still isn't prohibitively so.

However 1.) the weekend station closures are agonizingly annoying; 2.) it closes way too early. It's not just about baseball games, mind you -- it's a real problem for people like me who often fly into Washington late at night (especially on the weekends) at Dulles or Reagan, only to find that we've either missed the last train out of the metro or come perilously close to it. Ugh. Hello, $100 cabfare.

Still, I'll take the DC Metro as an overall experience over any other public transit system in America, and that includes extensive familiarity with Chicago (the infrastructure is falling apart, the station coverage anywhere except inside of the Loop is far too sparse for a city of its size) and New York (the geographical accessibility is peerless, of course, but it's just a messy, squalid experience).

Los Angeles is making progress with its Metro, although even when it reaches fruition, it won't match the peak of the interurban era (LA's fabled Red and Yellow cars). Also, it's a weird mix of heavy and light rail with poor linkage between lines (to get from North Hollywood to LAX, you have to take the Red, Blue and Green lines, then take a shuttle). But considering that LA had to effectively start from scratch after the growth of the freeway system doomed the original interurbans after World War II, it's achieved a lot over 20 years -- and come 2032, the system should be far more functional.

Metro is doing track work all over the place. It's needed, but it makes using the system really problematic on off-hours and weekends. They do ok at getting more trains to the park, but the rest of the system doesn't change at all with the increased ridership at that point, and between the single-tracking in some areas, the occasional snafu, and timing a transfer to another line, it makes a 20 dollar parking lot look like a steal. I'd absolutely take NY from Yankee Stadium over it. I've only done Boston and Chicago a couple of times, but that seemed better too. Really, when the Nats were at RFK it seemed better, but I still lived in the city then.

MLB shouldn't get invovled in this, the precedent is there, the Nats should just pay it, it'll be a PR nightmare if they don't.

Philadelphia and Boston have rail systems that don't operate 24 hours. What happened in those cities' situations when postseason play came and games ended late? I assume those services didn't close down; did the Phils and Bosox pay, and if not, who reimbursed those systems?

Philly trolleys run 24 hours. Did the main subway lines use to run 24 hours? I see they close at midnight but thought they ran all night years ago.

But the latest news is that supposedly MLB has told the Nationals not to pay.

You'll only have the 1pm games so, no worries.

Philly's rail system ran 24/7 up until the early '90s, when a midnight closing time was instituted. "Owl" bus service replicating the Broad Street and Market-Frankford lines was offered for those off hours. I recall that for regular-season Phillies games, SEPTA would have extra buses waiting outside the Vet in case the game went really late.

I wish Washington's Metro did something similar, but I don't believe D.C. has any "owl" bus routes. Also, the logistics of dropping people off at stations with parking lots (something Philly doesn't have aside from Fern Rock, Frankford and 69th Street) might prove confounding.

But the latest news is that supposedly MLB has told the Nationals not to pay.

You'll only have the 1pm games so, no worries.

Not after the Yankees are eliminated. (What, they're going to put Tampa Bay and Cincinnati in prime time?)

You'll only have the 1pm games so, no worries.

It has been quite a while since World Series games were played at 1:00.

It has been quite a while since World Series games were played at 1:00.

Selig has been pushing the networks for afternoon weekend games for several years, he might eventually get his wish.

It has been quite a while since World Series games were played at 1:00.

I suppose a Washington fan would know.

Selig has been pushing the networks for afternoon weekend games for several years, he might eventually get his wish.

This would be Bud Selig advocating for something I like, and that makes my brain hurt. STOP IT.

This would be Bud Selig advocating for something I like, and that makes my brain hurt. STOP IT.

You could still remember that he is the commissioner of baseball and if he wanted it bad enough it would have happened already. Basically he's beholden to the networks, has campaigned for it in multiple interviews but has never really pushed the point enough to make it happen. It's just like his campaign for replay in baseball, he talks about it frequently, but doesn't really do anything about it.

I could never understand (well, I sort of could) why BART in the Bay Area doesn't run late on weekends. With a giant awesome destination city smack in the middle of it, the Bay is one of those regions where people are willy nilly back and forth over the bridge and into the suburbs into the wee hours of the morning, and you know half of them have had something to drink. I get that it's a funding issue (although running two hours later on Fridays and Saturdays to limited locations wouldn't be that much more expensive, and you'd get a ton of transit). Or maybe they just don't want to take responsibility for all the drunks cooped up on a train together causing mayhem - it's better that they're out on the road where they're the county's problem. Like most large institutions, if it's not your problem, it's not actually a problem after all.