Trying to answer an age old question – Why do Washingtonians hate on Metro?
Whatever be the reason, the fact is that most folks who ride the system are so bitter about its performance and the Agency has not done much to address the issues that are behind this bitterness.
What’s the root of DC’s hatred for Metro?
So many people use (transit) here that there are a whole lot more opportunities to hear from people that don’t like it. In Cleveland, the same types of professionals who get frustrated with ‘hot cars’ and delayed trains and rude station managers (in Washington) simply aren’t using public transit.
He makes a good point, that transit is an integrated part Washington’s culture in a way that it is not in other cities, but that’s only half the answer. The other half is that Metro just isn’t as good as it used to be, simply because it’s aging, and many of us remember when it was new and perfect. Metro is only about a generation old. It was planned and built since most of its riders have been alive, and for its first couple of decades, nothing went wrong. The maintenance and safety problems that have plagued Metro this decade are for the most part new events, consequences of an aging system that we simply didn’t have to deal with until recently.
