I was working late in my office yesterday (ok, not working, but the internet connection at work is much better than the one at home), and didn’t get out of my office until aroud 11:20. “Ok”, I figured, “Getting home, even though I use the metro, is no problem.” I’ve done this before. My usual route: I get on the train on the Red Line at Dupont Circle around 11:30, and that takes me to the Gallery Place-Chinatown stop. I then switch trains, and take the last Yellow Line train out of Gallery Place at about 11:57, which takes me to my stop, Huntington, the last stop on the Yellow Line. This is my routine. It gets me home by 1, and I’m happy with it. Last night, everything was normal until I got to Gallery Place. I’m standing on the platform waiting, and no train comes. Finally, a Green Line train pulls up to the station. (The Green and Yellow lines share a track for part of the way, seperating at L’Enfant Plaza.) Even though the lights to the train are on, and people are in it, the sign says that its out of service. The conductor has opened the door in the front of the train manually, and says “Everybody on the train. If you’re going to Branch Avenue (last Green Line stop) or Huntington, get on the train.” The train takes me as far as L’Enfant Plaza, where the conductor announces over the intercom “Everyone going to Huntington, get off the train.” I get off the train, and in front of me, in the station, is camped an army of teenage girls. They’re all over the place. Another Green Line train comes up to the station, and just parks there. Finally, I find out what’s going on. Apparently, last night, there was an N’Synch concert at RFK stadium, which got out at 11:30. Of course, under normal circumstances, the last train leaves the stadium stop at 11:30, but not wanting to strand the N’Synch fans, metro decided that it would keep on running trains from the stadium until the stop was empty. The Green Line train (with my Yellow Line train waiting behind it), being the last train of the evening, therefore waited at L’Enfant Plaza until the last train from the stadium arrived there, so that people could catch their transfer to the Yellow and Green lines. An hour later, the Green Line train pulled out and the Yellow Line pulled up, and I, along with most of the army of teenage girls, got on. I didn’t get home last night until 2 AM, thanks to N’Synch letting their concert go on until 11:30, and metro being generous and deciding not to strand teenyboppers in DC.
Right! Those teenagers should have been made to walk home! And if it was a respectable band like Dave Matthews it would have been ok! 
Yeah, is that so hard to understand?
Reminds me of several fourth-of-July’s ago in New York City, when the MTA runs extra Lexington and Seventh Ave/Broadway lines to get the hordes of people who go down to watch the fireworks home at night. Of course, on that particular night, one of the 25 extra trains they were running broke down, and stopped.
Normally when this happens, they are able to route around it by sending the trains behind it to the express track, which screws over the people who need that particular station but at least everyone else can get home.
There was construction on the express track.
Result: 25 subway trains full of hot, sweaty, stinking people sitting still in the tunnel for 40 minutes.
:mad:
Nothing I enjoy more then reading a full block of text, I guess Captain Amazing’s powers don’t extend to an enter or tab key. =/
Bah, Captain Amazing is too powerful to format text! Sorry about that. I’m tired…yeah, that’s the ticket, I’m tired. 
At least he knows more than 25 words:)
And . . . he can even use them properly![sub]Mostly;)[/sub]
I don’t know what you’re complaining about – having a public transport system that actually takes account of major events like N’Sync concerts is a good thing.
Take, for example, last New Year’s Eve in London. The Mayor wanted to have a big fireworks display at midnight. So London Underground announced they would close at 11pm so as not to deal with the crowds. So the Mayor moved the fireworks to earlier in the evening. Guess what? LU moved their closing time back.
Eventually the fireworks had been moved to about 6:30 pm, and LU’s closing time back to about 4:30 pm, at which time it’s still light out. So the Mayor said the hell with it. Another triumph for public services. :mad:
Not that I wish to hijack a good rant on how annoying N’Sync are, but since we’re on the subject of subways:
Hey friedo: any useful opinions or stories you can offer a poor London resident on whether Bob Kiley actually made any difference to the NYC transport system?
…my brothers in law are a boy band.
If they were a world famous boy band, then that would be cool, as I could sponge money off them.
Well, but if the concert got out at, say, 10, then the Metro schedule wouldn’t have been disrupted, because there would have been more trains for the N’synchers to get on, and it wouldn’t have taken me 2 and a half hours to get home.
I know that it’s very fun to hate 'N Sync (which I don’t) but come on:
I have never in my life been to a concert that let out before 10. Can you just maybe live and let live with the fans of boy bands?
jarbaby
My point is (which wasn’t clear in the previous post): would you have cared about your transport problems if the band had been U2? Or is that OK because they’re cool.
jarbaby
My problem with them wasn’t because they were N’synch. I don’t know that I had ever heard of N’synch before this concert. The holdup could have been the due to a meeting of the International Conference to Outlaw War and Bring Peace and Hugs and I still would have complained, because it threw my schedule off and kept me up till 2 in the morning.
Alright then. That’s all I wanted to know.
Carry on!
Ok, as a native of LA and never having had the pleasure of reliable mass transit, i think DC’s Metro is a blessing. i actually started smiling uncontrolably the first week i rode it. I used to have to get up at five thirty in the morning to catch a bus that didnt take me into downtown for, oh…two hours. then i had to rush to catch another bus that got me to school at eight am, so i would have to rush with my heavy load of art supplies to catch first class.( i went to L.A.C.H.S.A, for those who know what i am talking about.) Then at the end of the day, if i was able to catch the one-eighteen, i was in good shape, as that only took an hour and a half to get me home. Sometimes I would be late (due to the previous bus) and i would have to take my chances with the four-twenty. Sometimes i got home in an hour and half, most of the time it was more like three hours. once it took four.
When i am in washington,i get everywhere i want to be, ontime, within reasonable walking distance of my desired end. I didnt even have problems with the humid, gross, slightly comical crowding on the fourth of july. I loved it infact. I wish my school was in washington, mainly because of the metro. but its not. its in baltimore. i should get over it already. sigh.