Remember that cars suck and make our cities worse in nearly every way.

Every time I cook with hing, I cannot stop myself from smelling it. I don't know why, it smells awful every time, but at this point it's a reflex. Open it up, think "man this must smell awful." Smell. Confirm. Repeat.

Wait what? That's a story I want to hear.

You don't even need tags. Just drive without. Cops don't care.

Yeah sorry, next door would be complaining about a bike lane or about a stolen package.

These temp tags are accompanied by incredibly dangerous behavior that leads to serious injury or death. They're a real problem.

Honestly, just don't have plates. No one is stopping you. If you get pulled over on the off chance, just say you left them in your other pants.

Yep. A WHOLE lot about that. Like a lot a lot. Let's just say it was a fight to even get the green line built.

This book makes you appreciate statehood even more with all the ways congress held DC hostage. It will also make you mourn the loss of Kennedy even more, the only true presidential friend of the Metro.

Agreed. There are going to be a lot of trains running at half empty as they return from the Virginian exurbs back to the urban core.

Perhaps Loundon County will take the approach that Arlington did and develop those stations into some real TOD town centers. Or they will take the fairfax approach with the orange line and make them shitty parking lots surrounded by highways and SFH.

My money is on the later, but hey, a man can dream.

If I were king of the world I would have it go a little farther north after hitting Georgetown to connect it to Adams Morgan , plus I would have it go a touch farther east aftr Union station in order to get something in Trinidad and then come down and hit Capitol Hill.

Zachary Schrag's book on Metro was really eye opening and made you appreciate so many of the decisions we live with today. Answers questions like: Why didn't the entrances have canopies, what station did locals get wiped off the map (not Georgetown), why didn't Tysons originally get a line, and so many more. Great book, fascinating read.

Agreed, Metro is both a commuter rail and an intra-city metro.

It's definitely not as big and far reaching as RER (1/3 the milage and stations), so that comparison is also not perfect. Metro lines aren't covering as much ground as RER, and don't have the density of a real metro system, so I still think the point stands that "express" tracks don't really bring a lot to the table.

To briefly compare to NYC: The entire red line is 27 stations (31 miles), while the A train local in NYC is 40 stops (also 31 miles). The A train express is 18 stops, but it's also a bit shorter, roughly 20 miles. So by that measure, the redline is more or less an "express" train with that density of stations per mile.

edit: conciseness.

I would make the argument that Springfield to dulles would make more sense as a VRE spur, but I agree with the sentiment.

The next, most likely metro line is the blue line loop.

Maybe, but you really have to ask if that would be worth the extra money. And besides, for long distances, metro is already faster than almost any other form of transit, so is it really worth saving the 5 - 10 min? As demonstrated by OP, it wouldn't increase ridership, it would not greatly reduce the need for single tracking, and it would come at the expense of other improvements.

Frequency improvements would do more to reduce travel time way more than express lines. And as GGWASH points out, additional lines would do more to alleviate the pain of single tracking more than extra tracks.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't be good things, but with limited resources, is it the best bang for your buck?

Glad to help!

Many places don't do 4 track systems. Also it wasn't worth the upfront cost for a system that was lucky to be built at all.

Not for nothing, DC doesn't really have the station density to warrant express tracks. For example here is Paris's metro over the DC area (note Paris is also entirely 2 tracks.)

Here is a more in-depth explanation of the 2 vs 4 track system

Edit: Grammar

That's a huge roach.

I assume there were numerous planning meetings, an analysis of alternatives, cost estimates, and many more things that we were not privy to here that factored into the decision.

Charging outlets are going to be very useful. Also noted is the new HD security cameras which is a nice addition.

Yeah, I use the elevators frequently, I smell the piss all the time.

But it's not really relevant to a post on the new trains.

That doesn't really happen. The train cars themselves have always been quite nice.

Good thing this is a post about trains not elevators.

Or you can now simplify the HVAC system to only need to perform one task instead of try to do two counter tasks.

Plus it's gentler than having a blast of hot air on you.

Yeah, I ate the onion on this one.

Pay for a garage? Safety takes priority over storage of private property.

Plus frankly a lot of those cars almost never move.