Last week the Post ran a series of articles on Metro’s problems. It includes some interesting graphics, including one (somewhat suggestively drawn, if viewed in a certain frame of mind, ahem) that shows which escalators in the system are among the longest. If you’ve taken the Metro here, you know that some stations are located so deep underground that getting to the surface can seem to take forever. (I’ve wanted to calculate how much time, say annually, I spend on Metro escalators.) The one at Wheaton, which holds the title of longest escalator not only in the Metro system but also the Western hemisphere, measures 508 feet long, almost as long as the Washington Monument is tall (555 feet).
The one I use every day at Bethesda (photo above by yours truly) comes in at second place in the system at 475 feet long. I often read a magazine or work on a crossword puzzle on the train, and then continue while standing on the escalator. I’ve walked it a few times, “for exercise,” I tell myself. Not fun.
508 feet? wow, that’s deep.
I always assumed Rosslyn was the deepest, but to learn that there are 74 feet more of escalator at Wheaton boggles my mind! I have never needed to travel that far north.
I am curious what daily route you take?
What really smokes my cheese is that MetroBUS (as opposed to MetroRAIL) carries almost as many people each day as the subway. Yet, the Post didn’t devote a single word in its multi-part investigative series into the problems of MetroBus. There were two paragraphs of off-hand comment about drivers not inspecting buses before they take off, deep in the third story. That’s all.
Today, the Post ran an article about MetroBus’ problems — as identified by an outside group.
Yeah, whatever. Not nearly as much flash and smoke as the “investigative” pieces done earlier with such fanfare.
I guess the poor (who overwhelmingly ride MetroBus) are beneath the Post’s notice.