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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Nationals could make an agreement with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to keep trains running past normal operating hours. To do this, they would have to put down a $29,500 deposit, which covers the cost of operating Metro’s 86 stations for an additional hour. Then, if it appears that a game will run late — in the case of a rain delay, for instance — the Nationals could contact Metro to exercise that agreement at any point before 11 p.m.
Making such an agreement sounds far more reasonable than the chaotic scene Monday night: ushers and scoreboard messages alerting fans that the last train was to depart at 11:20 and hundreds of the more than 21,000 fans exiting the ballpark with the game far from over. The Nationals have offered no explanation for the lack of a contract with WMATA to hedge against fiascoes like Monday’s; maybe team officials think there’s too little fan interest for the cost. On the one occasion that Metro did operate late — for a Sunday-night matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies on May 6 — only 445 fans used Metrorail in the extra hour of service, costing the team more than $60 per passenger.
The Nats ought to take another look. The 11:20 exodus from Monday’s game seems to indicate strong fan interest in later Metro service.
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How embarrassing is it that you have a major city where the last trip home is at 11:20?
Houstonians say Hi. last from Reliant to downtown = 11:20 weeknights, from MMP at midnight.
Besides, we know the Nats are getting the 1 or 4 pm slot!
I'd rather walk the six miles back home than give one more dime to the current WMATA. I'd save a few bucks, I'd get a lot more exercise, and I would probably get home faster too.
Quick google search (so this may be wrong) says this is also true in:
Shanghai Metro
Seoul Metro
London Underground
Beijing Subway
Mexico City Metro
Barcelona Metro
and many more I'm sure
Although the UnsuckDCMetro blog points out there's a "hidden" train at about 11:40 that picks up the last few stragglers. They just don't want to advertise that because they want to close the damn system.
The 11:20 thing is ridiculous, though. The T in Boston sends out the last trains around 12:15, and that's always been something of a joke. An hour earlier is pretty stupid.
It used to be, and not all that long ago either. But it has been allowed to go completely down the toilet, and just about everyone who has lived in this metro area for more than a few years or so knows it.
I love the Nats and really enjoy rooting for them. But the team management routinely treats its fans like garbage.
I've always thought that the Metro was one of the best subway systems in the country.
They keep raising the prices (I think they have gone up three times since I moved here) and the service is getting worse, especially on the Orange/Blue lines. It only takes a couple times of being 45 minutes late to work while getting no information regarding the delay and then being charged 5 bucks for the ride before you start hating the WMATA and the metro.
It's been explained to me (note that I can't corroborate this, so I hope I'm not spreading BS) that there are very few places in the tunnels where trains are able to pass each other (meaning: in the event of a problem with one train, a train going in the same direction would be able to pass it in the tunnel). So in a sense, according to this telling, the system is built to succeed only when things are going perfectly, which of course rarely happens.
Compare with NY. Suppose there is a stalled train at the Spring Street local station on the C line. The controllers have two options: Send the C express or have it switch to the F line at Jay Street, then resume its normal run at West 4th. Neither option is available in DC, as there are neither express tracks nor overlapping routes with switch tracks.
Consequently, Metro riders have to put up with "one-tracking," even in the heart of DC.
I always take the metro to Nats games and it never takes me more than a few minutes to get a train home. I've never been stuck for very long, or had to wait more than 10 minutes for a train, and that's in probably 50 games over the years.
Let's ask the DC Taxpayers to take care of it. What an effing bunch of cheapass lowrent morons.
I always thought it was kind of a joke that there's no metro service to Dulles.
I really can't tell if this is a joke or not.
Yup. As long as you don't want to go further than Vienna, you're all set.
It is out in the middle of nowhere.
DCA, however, is more metro accessible than basically any other major city airport I can think of short of Hong Kong.
I am scared to check the Amtrak timetable.
Edit: other than catching the Merto by 11:20 I suppose
Get there early and walk over to Eastern Market and go to DC-3 for hot dogs.
It would have been nice if the Post had simply pointed out that seeing a whole ballgame has never been guaranteed by anyone, and left it at that.
Try having a pre-game drink along Barracks Row (Eighth Street, SE). I think the Ugly Mug still offers a free shuttle to the ballpark. If you're going to a day game, stop off at Manglialardo & Sons Italian Deli on Penn and 13th, SE for a sandwich. (IIRC, the joint is only open for lunch.)
It does
in NYC, it's certainly not a joke...
Where are you coming from? I usually just hang out at the half-street fairgrounds till I'm ready to go in, but I live on the yellow/green so it isn't a big trek for me.
Amtrak only goes to Newport News. You have to take a bus to get Virginia Beach.
That's a fairly ambitious walk, but METRO goes to Eastern Market, and as others have noted, there is a free shuttle from at least one bar in that neighborhood.
I'm staying in Lafayette Square.
And thanks for all the suggestions. They sound good.
The Mall and Monuments are pretty close, as are the Smithsonian museums, if you haven't done that previously. Capitol Hill gets you closer to Nationals Park, if you want to do something in that neighborhood, but the METRO to the ball park is the Green Line, so doing something along that route (Gallery Place, National Archives) before heading to the Park also works well.
I believe the Kingston Trio wrote a song about you. Though "Gonfalon Bubble" doesn't have the same ring as poor old "Charlie."
I've actually not been to DC before and am looking forward to the visit. I refrained from opening up a can of worms and asking for any general suggestions on must visit museums, resturants, etc. (though I'm all ears), as I'll only be in town for a long weekend.
Yes.
It really depends on how much you want to walk. For instance you can take the blue/orange line to GWU and walk the rest of the way to Georgetown. DC is so small you can walk, bus, or metro to any place in the city and it will just take you minutes. Even the cab rides will cost you less than 10 bucks to go to most places. So really the entire city is available as well NoVA.
Assuming your flight gets in before midnight.
Churchkey
Pizzeria Paradiso
Smoke & Barrel
Wine:
Urbana
Proof
Veritaas
Tapas:
Jaleo
Masa 14
BBQ:
Hill Country
Henry's Soul Cafe
Rocklands
Standard
Burgers:
Black & Orange
BGR
Shake Shack
Five Guys
Ray's Hell Burger (Arlington)
Ledo (a few places in the District, more in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs)
Oh, you have all kinds of options. McCoy's list is a good start. If I were you I'd chill out at RFD or the Passenger or somewhere on the yellow green, and then pop down to the park. If you want a great fancy meal I'd hit up Corduroy or Rasika.
In that case, I would hope they would have nothing on the schedule until noon the following day.
And thanks again for all the pointers. I trust the average Primate more than Yelp or the like.
Another thing to consider is the Capital Bikeshare. I think 1-day passes are under $10. You can use that to zip from point to point in the city... My favorite touristy thing is to walk around the tidal basin, catching the Jefferson, FDR, MLK and Washington Monuments. It's especially nice (and less crowded) in the evening.
If you were to hustle right now you could catch a bus leaving Navy Yard area and it would be at Van Ness at 12:34. 30 minutes is about how long you'd expect it to take if you were to use the Metro.
Nothing much outside of half-smokes. They do have a ton of Ethiopian and Indian restaurants and the suburbs seem to be packed with Korean joints. I'd also say they have a pretty large selection of Peruvian restaurants as well.
Second the recommendation for the Sackler (and Freer) galleries.
If you are coming from chicago, there will be plenty of places with great seafood. I'd sooner go towards the bay for crabcakes but you'll still be able to get nice ones in the city. There are a couple of great sushi joints.
If you are willing to go into the suburbs, the korean and vietnamese will beat what you can get in chicago. The ethiopian is nice here, but probably you can get just as good in chitown.
1-I've never had a really bad experience on the Metro in all the years I've lived in MD. I guess the worst I saw was at a Faith No More/Guns n Roses/Metallica concert at RFK where the Metro closed before the concert ended, but that wasn't really their fault-a**hole Axl came on like three hours late so the show didn't end til ridiculous o'clock. From my understanding (I caught a ride with a friend)the scene at the closed Metro got kinda ugly
2-That said, I can't say the same about taxi's in DC. Those things are nuts. They have all sorts of weird "zones" and different charges for passing through them. I've literally gotten off the Metro, hailed a cab, given him the addy I was looking for, had the hack drive us one, count em one, block (This was pre GPS cell phone days), and charged me twenty bucks because I crossed over a zone. Insanity.
3-I know it's not a great paper or anything, but the Washington Times did a nice series on Metro's failings a while ago.The came up with a pretty damning pattern of nepotism, racism, sexism and outright incompetence at an admin level. Here's a link to the first article.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/26/metro-derailed-by-culture-of-complacence-incompete/?page=all#pagebreak
I remember hearing a similar announcement in SF a few years back, leading to a mass exodus in about the 8th inning in a game that was going slowly. Might have been on a Sunday, though.
If you like raw shellfish, both Clyde's in Chinatown and Hank's Oysters have raw bar happy hours (Hank's may just be oysters). I think McCormick and Schmick does too. Probably a few other places too. If you like oysters or raw clams, it's pretty amazing.
Interesting, McCoy, but Metrobus has its own issues. What happens if the bus leaving the Navy Yard is packed? When's the next bus due to arrive?
And what advice do you have for a fan living in Ballston or Lanham?
Meanwhile...
Report: Nationals want D.C. to pay for extra Metro service during playoffs
I love the fact that if you accidentally type unsuckdcmetro.com into the browser instead of the blog's true URL of unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com, it redirects you to the WMATA site. Yep, the agency is actually paying money to have control of the unsuckdcmetro.com web domain. You really can't make sh*t like this up.
The zone system is finally gone, we're on normal meters just like everywhere else. The only problem for out of towners is the inexplicable fee structure whereby the cab driver just "randomly" adds several dollars to the start of your trip based on things you'll never understand (I mostly understand them, as a resident, but it's still sometimes jarring).
The A goes right to JFK (with help from additional public MONORAIL!). Public transport to LaGuardia is NR and bus, but equally easy.
If you're going to Newark, I can't help you, nor do you deserve help.
On closing times, I remember being shocked by Boston's closing times and wondering if the taxi lobby had set it up so the T closed before the bars.
Given that Washington's subway gets more usage than any place except NY, you'd think they'd at least hit 1230 or 1.
How many places have 24 hour coverage other than NYC? Philly. Chicago's Red and Blue lines. Anything else?
Drive/Taxi.
Oh, and did I mention I'm claustrophobic?
EDIT: #73. "Never really had a problem with Metro and I almost every single day. Then again I don't demand absolute perfection out of a complicated system of mass transit every single time I use it."
We can now deduce that you don't live/work close to the Dupont Metro stop... ;-)
I know it is torture to drive at midnight 7 miles or so but do it for the kids.
The thing is is that Navy Yard to Ballston will take you 45 minutes to an hour on the Metro so even if they push back the schedule by an hour you're still getting home late so this whole notion of better not have to do anything early in the morning the next day thing because you took the bus is a red herring.
We can now deduce that you don't live/work close to the Dupont Metro stop... ;-)
Use it almost every day.
Just. Wow.
No, McCoy, what's ridiculous is that on weeknights the last Metro leaves Dupont shortly after midnight, yet the last train supposedly leaves the Navy Yard at 11.20, even when there is a widely attended event taking place at Nats Park.
The city and the team are constantly urging fans from one end of the Beltway to the other to take mass transit but are less than committed to ensuring that they can utilize the service when a game goes late.
And you're not dead yet!?
No kidding. McCoy is either the luckiest dude in the city, or he's lying through his teeth. It's almost certainly the latter.
The last train does not leave Navy Yard at 11:20. The last train leaves at 11:40. 95% of the games or more played at Nationals Park end well before the last train leaves for the night.
No kidding. McCoy is either the luckiest dude in the city, or he's lying through his teeth. It's almost certainly the latter.
Yep, I've been laying the groundwork for this lie for years all so it can payoff in a DC Metro thread.
Nope, spouting bullsh*t is something that just comes naturally to you.
In McCoy's defense (seriously), I remember he once mentioned he barely uses the air conditioning, so the man clearly has a much higher tolerance for discomfort than the rest of us.
Or he has the normal experience that 90% of D.C. residents have. Metro isn't perfect, but having lived in Chicago, New York, Boston, and having spent tons of time all over Asia, the D.C. metro works just fine.
I'm sorry, Joey, I don't hold a grudge as much as you do and demand the world be perfect all of the time. I've been going to the Dupont Metro Station on an almost daily occurrence for over two years now and I'll say it again I haven't had any problem above a slight inconvenience all during that time.
I defended Metro for a long time, but things really went downhill. What is missing somewhat from these critiques is that yes, WMATA has been incompetent and inefficient, but it's disingenuous to ignore the fact that Metro is beholden to three different jurisdictions in procuring its funding, and for many years rarely knew what it could count on longterm--and therefore it's no surprise that needed capital expenditures went unfunded, PM was allowed to slide, etc.
Again, WMATA bears a significant portion of the blame, but not all of it; to some degree it's like placing the blame for crumbling roads and bridges entirely at the feet of the US DOT, while giving a pass to the decision makers who failed to figure out how to fund maintenance and replacement.
People have different tolerances for city life, but it's tough for me to imagine that someone wouldn't at least note a significant change in Metro quality over the last five years, even if they still found it tolerable.
The system was built on the cheap and is already showing its age, a mere 35 years after opening. DC-area residents had better pray that the system 35 years from now is a quarter as efficient as what NYers experience today.
I hear what you're saying Benji, but Metro fare rates have skyrocketed in the last three or four years or so. And if they're having funding issues, then why the hell are they wasting money on stupid bullsh*t like buying control of the "unsuckdcmetro.com" web domain? WMATA management is horrible and incompetent, and they are the ones who are mostly to blame for what happened, not Virginia or Maryland or anyone else.
On the domain, can't you register one and set up a pointer for $20/year or so? If they were spending a grand or something, I'd agree.
I work in NYC, many subway platforms in the summer clear 100 easily...
Some platforms have fans, I've heard rumors that some have AC (the 4/5/6 lines- which I don't take).
The one good thing in recent years? They've been installing signs telling you how many minutes away the next train are...
doesn't mean much to you.
I take a commuter train into the city, years ago living in Carle Place (long Island) they changed the schedule, instead of a train living every hour, they one skipped an hour, no big deal right? It was a major inconvenience for me and everyone who got off at my stop- to get home I either had to leave work an hour earlier (which as it turned out was not allowed) or basically wait an extra hour to get home, considering that my daily commute (both ways) was already eating up nearly 3 hours a day- that pretty much wiped out my free time at home..
Three of those say that some commuters had 10-20 minute delays. A ten minute delay isn't my favorite thing, but it happens sometimes in DC, just like it happened sometimes in Chicago, and it happened sometimes in New York. It is part of mass transit. Your day is not ruined by a 10 minute delay.
Gasp, a delay at a certain point in time during the day. The horror.
Yes because the bus is available.
This is sort of what I was thinking about my experience with the Metro. I guess on an absolute level it probably sucks, but I was comparing it to years of commuting on the T in Boston and the CTA in Chicago, and Washington has always seemed better. I mean, the CTA is getting ready to close all Red Line service to the South Side for half a year, which is going to be a disaster for a huge number of people. And a 10-20 minute delay on my Green Line trips in Boston was an entirely regular experience.
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