Day 5 - A commute

Being new to the Washington DC area, I used the DC Metro trip planner to make my way to work. The plan was simple. Leave home at 8:02 to catch the 3B Bus at 8:08. Take the bus approximately 2.5 miles to arrive at the Rosslyn Metro station at 8:18 am. This would give me 8 minutes to catch the Blue Line so I could arrive at L'Enfant Plaza at 8:37. From there, I'd catch the Green line at 8:44 and arrive at Branch Ave at 9:03. One hour door to door. Well, the 3B never showed up, but the 15L did at 8:18. But since the 3B was apparently not running, the 15L was very crowded. Each stop brought on a new batch of passengers with driver requests to those already on-board to "move back", which drew responses of "We're all the way back!" By 8:35, the time I should be finishing my first train ride, the bus was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, occasionally pulling over in attempt to take on more passengers.

At about 8:45 I gave up on the bus, got off at a stop and proceeded to walk the last 1/2 mile to the train station at a pace faster than the bus. I arrived before the bus, cleared the turnstiles and could see from the rider board that the next Blue train would arrive in 5 minutes. I boarded the Blue to get to L'Enfant Plaza to change trains to the Green line towards Branch Ave. The next train was a Yellow due to arrive in 1 minute, followed by a Green in 7 minutes, followed by a Green in 9 minutes, and yet another Green in 9 minutes. While an inexperienced rider, I suspected that three Greens in a row with two at the same time could not be good. A loud speaker voiced, in a sound that echoed in the tunnels making it difficult to hear, but distinct enough to know that there were delays along the Green line. At 9:25, 22 minutes after I thought I'd be leaving a train, I boarded the Green line. By the time I was sitting on the green line, a fellow passenger commented "Running a bit slow today."

I arrived at 10:11.