That’s the best way you can describe what happened on Saturday the day of the Rally to Restore Sanity. I left a little later than planned. I knew there would be a lot of people on the way to the rally. I just didn’t expect what I found at the Metro.
The platform at Rhode Island Avenue was pretty well filled with people. There was also construction so trains were single tracking between Florida Ave and Catholic University (or something along those lines). A train finally pulls into the station and it is completely filled with people. As in there is absolutely no room for anyone to get on. Maybe and this is a big maybe one or two people got on the train. So most everyone was still on the platform. And the next train going downtown wasn’t coming for at least 15 minutes or more.
After seeing when the next train was going to come along, people started thinking of another way of getting down to the Mall. They (me along with them) decided the best way to go was to go to Fort Totten and then catch a Green Line train down to the Mall. Getting off at either Archives or Gallery Place.
So along comes the train heading out of DC. The train operator made an announcement that it might be easier to get on this train and then transfer at Ft. Totten. He made it at the Catholic University stop as well. I thought that was good. A Metro employee who was actually trying to help people out.
We got on to the train. There were a great many people on the train with the same idea. On to Catholic U where there were even more people with that idea. Finally got to Ft. Totten. Went downstairs to a pretty large crowd of people on the platform. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait very long for a train. And was it packed? Yet it was. Eventually it got so full that at a couple of stations no one could get on. As we were heading on our way, the operator announced that the Archives station was closed because of over crowding on the platform. So by default Gallery Place became the last stop for me.
Got off at Gallery Place and went down to the rally.
You have to wonder why Metro decided to have construction on this weekend. There was the Rally on Saturday and then the Marine . Marathon on Sunday. Who at Metro thinks these things up? Also with a large number of new or inexperience riders using the system, especially on Saturday, why didn’t Metro have more people out on the platforms letting people what was going on. More announcements on the directions trains were going especially at the stops where they were doing work.
But I forgot that actually might be helpful to people.
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