You're ahead of Seattle. I came here from DC, and wow what a step backward. As it turns out, we had a trolley-based mass transit system until GM and Ford (and

You're ahead of Seattle. I came here from DC, and wow what a step backward. As it turns out, we had a trolley-based mass transit system until GM and Ford (and Exxon?) bought it up and dismantled it. (No joke.) When I lived in Sterling, it was a 15-minute drive to Dulles. When I moved to Silver Spring, it was a 45-minute drive. From Sterling, there were no mass transit options whatsoever, AFAIK. Of course, with a 15-minute trip, there's really not much incentive to look for alternatives. From Silver Spring, you CAN get to Dulles via mass transit... I had to walk to a bus stop, take the red line downtown, change to the orange line out to West Falls Church, and take a Washington Flyer to the airport: 2.5 hours. So I agree... worthless. I also found that biking from Silver Spring to Crystal City took approximately the same amount of time as the bus/metro combination, and had fewer delays. Would you believe, btw, that Seattle's equivalent to the Metropass has a 24-hour latency? So if you put money on it, you have to wait for 24 hours before you can use it?