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I recently spent a lot of time in downtown DC with two toddlers, and the headways were absolutely amazing. Never waited for more than 3 minutes for a train. Alm

I recently spent a lot of time in downtown DC with two toddlers, and the headways were absolutely amazing. Never waited for more than 3 minutes for a train. Almost felt like the US was a fully developed country. I would love nothing more than to move my family to such a situation full time. I have immense thanks for the architect and executors of the DC metro, and whatever operational genius has restored amazing service levels post-Covid, when most transit agencies have anemic service and are now in a death spiral.

yuppiepuppie 3y ago
I grew up in the DMV area, and the Metro was notorious for its long waits, single-tracking, and super expensive tickets. The last time I took the metro was about 7 years ago, and at that time there was lots of political turmoil in the Metro leadership. I hope it has changed as I loved the concept and design. But like most things that go wrong, execution is what spoiled it for me.
- nosefurhairdo 3y ago
  DC Metro was great when I lived in nova a few years back. Huge upgrade from riding Bart in the SF Bay Area.
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    I grew up in the DMV region and always get annoyed when people cite NYC/Chicago as the (mostly, only) functioning local train system(s) in the country. The Metro definitely has points where it gets annoying, but for the most part it connects things really well and it's the biggest thing I miss when living on the west coast.
angled 3y ago
How nice are headways compared to timetables? I realise a lot of behind the scenes programming occurs to make it all just work, but as a commuter, that little bit less effort spent planning v. using makes such a huge difference. Last year our bus switched from running every ten minutes to every fifteen minutes, but it matches our ferries better.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Since I used the metro for impromptu movement rather than to make appointments, the biggest feature is high frequency. At peak times trains are every three minutes in the DC metro, and the slowest seemed to be six minutes. 10 or 15 minute intervals, or the 20+ minute BART intervals, make a system very inconvenient.
m463 3y ago
I had to look this up. A headway is basically "trains come every n minutes" as opposed to "train comes at 7:12 and 7:32 and ..." Seems simple and approachable.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  In large cities with frequent service, it's often only the headway time that is shown when traffic or passenger load would make it difficult to keep exactly to the scheduled times. Example bus stop timetable in London with exact times only given in the early morning and for the last buses of the night: https://twitter.com/se1/status/963786580593905666 https://twitter.com/se1/status/963786580593905666
dkrich 3y ago
People who visit DC almost invariably marvel at the metro because they use it for a couple days likely not at peak times. For day to day commuting it is awful and a running joke for people who live there. Elevator outages and trains getting stuck on a regular basis.
- CPLX 3y ago
  I grew up in DC and moved to NYC and it’s painful to compare the two systems, DC’s is a total embarrassment. It was designed to take tourists to museums and government workers from suburban parking lots to work in the morning and evening. That’s it. The two fatal design flaws are lack of express trains and stations that are high ceilinged and deeply buried so it takes like 14 minutes to get from the tracks to the street. It’s barely a subway it’s more like a odd suburban light rail hybrid that happens to run into an actual city.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Ok, but realize that a lot of the readership here is in California, and the DC Metro is a far far bigger step up over our systems than it is from the DC Metro to, say, Tokyo. There were three and four minute headways between trains in DC! This is just incomprehensible technological advancement for Californians.
  - snowwrestler 3y ago
    Well yeah, compared to NY, DC itself is mostly an odd suburb. The entire region only has like 5 buildings over 30 stories tall; most are in the 15-story range or lower. Of course the NY subway is denser and runs more frequently. DC is also not flat like NY. Some Metro stations are deeply buried in hills, but a bunch are shallow and many are actually above ground.
- cowsup 3y ago
  And also the fact that, anything outside of tourist attractions typically only has one or two lines serving them. If you’re going from the Smithsonian museum to any number of hotels, you’ll have a variety of trains to take. Otherwise, you may need to wait longer. It’s like an old childhood friend — they may be in a bad spot and you can’t stand to be around them, but the love is still there. I love metro and hope it improves. It’s getting there, slowly but surely. Still fails to deliver and eliminating off-peak pricing is hurting those who have no other option.
francisofascii 3y ago
Probably more than 10 years ago now, I created a personal web app that pulled the "headway" listings for the various stations. The idea was you could be outside the station and know when to go to the station or know if you had to rush down the stairs to catch a train. During hon-peak hours, the interval times could be 15 - 30 minutes, so timing was everything. Back then (and maybe now) Metro would not report a time greater than 20 minutes, but you could check stations up the line to see if a train was coming to your station. The system worked okay unless single tracking was involved, in which the data is not reliable.

yuppiepuppie 3y ago

I grew up in the DMV area, and the Metro was notorious for its long waits, single-tracking, and super expensive tickets. The last time I took the metro was about 7 years ago, and at that time there was lots of political turmoil in the Metro leadership. I hope it has changed as I loved the concept and design. But like most things that go wrong, execution is what spoiled it for me.

nosefurhairdo 3y ago
DC Metro was great when I lived in nova a few years back. Huge upgrade from riding Bart in the SF Bay Area.
- Klonoar 3y ago
  I grew up in the DMV region and always get annoyed when people cite NYC/Chicago as the (mostly, only) functioning local train system(s) in the country. The Metro definitely has points where it gets annoying, but for the most part it connects things really well and it's the biggest thing I miss when living on the west coast.

angled 3y ago

How nice are headways compared to timetables? I realise a lot of behind the scenes programming occurs to make it all just work, but as a commuter, that little bit less effort spent planning v. using makes such a huge difference. Last year our bus switched from running every ten minutes to every fifteen minutes, but it matches our ferries better.

epistasis 3y ago
Since I used the metro for impromptu movement rather than to make appointments, the biggest feature is high frequency. At peak times trains are every three minutes in the DC metro, and the slowest seemed to be six minutes. 10 or 15 minute intervals, or the 20+ minute BART intervals, make a system very inconvenient.

m463 3y ago

I had to look this up. A headway is basically "trains come every n minutes" as opposed to "train comes at 7:12 and 7:32 and ..." Seems simple and approachable.

Symbiote 3y ago
In large cities with frequent service, it's often only the headway time that is shown when traffic or passenger load would make it difficult to keep exactly to the scheduled times. Example bus stop timetable in London with exact times only given in the early morning and for the last buses of the night: https://twitter.com/se1/status/963786580593905666 https://twitter.com/se1/status/963786580593905666

dkrich 3y ago

People who visit DC almost invariably marvel at the metro because they use it for a couple days likely not at peak times. For day to day commuting it is awful and a running joke for people who live there. Elevator outages and trains getting stuck on a regular basis.

CPLX 3y ago
I grew up in DC and moved to NYC and it’s painful to compare the two systems, DC’s is a total embarrassment. It was designed to take tourists to museums and government workers from suburban parking lots to work in the morning and evening. That’s it. The two fatal design flaws are lack of express trains and stations that are high ceilinged and deeply buried so it takes like 14 minutes to get from the tracks to the street. It’s barely a subway it’s more like a odd suburban light rail hybrid that happens to run into an actual city.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Ok, but realize that a lot of the readership here is in California, and the DC Metro is a far far bigger step up over our systems than it is from the DC Metro to, say, Tokyo. There were three and four minute headways between trains in DC! This is just incomprehensible technological advancement for Californians.
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  Well yeah, compared to NY, DC itself is mostly an odd suburb. The entire region only has like 5 buildings over 30 stories tall; most are in the 15-story range or lower. Of course the NY subway is denser and runs more frequently. DC is also not flat like NY. Some Metro stations are deeply buried in hills, but a bunch are shallow and many are actually above ground.
cowsup 3y ago
And also the fact that, anything outside of tourist attractions typically only has one or two lines serving them. If you’re going from the Smithsonian museum to any number of hotels, you’ll have a variety of trains to take. Otherwise, you may need to wait longer. It’s like an old childhood friend — they may be in a bad spot and you can’t stand to be around them, but the love is still there. I love metro and hope it improves. It’s getting there, slowly but surely. Still fails to deliver and eliminating off-peak pricing is hurting those who have no other option.

francisofascii 3y ago

Probably more than 10 years ago now, I created a personal web app that pulled the "headway" listings for the various stations. The idea was you could be outside the station and know when to go to the station or know if you had to rush down the stairs to catch a train. During hon-peak hours, the interval times could be 15 - 30 minutes, so timing was everything. Back then (and maybe now) Metro would not report a time greater than 20 minutes, but you could check stations up the line to see if a train was coming to your station. The system worked okay unless single tracking was involved, in which the data is not reliable.