Metrorail Routing Pop Quiz

washington dc by wayan
Photo by Wayan

So let us say you are somewhere on the Red Line north of Dupont Circle and are headed south of Pentagon City. Which is faster:

  1. Yellow Line via La Enfant Plaza, or
  2. Blue Line via Metro Center?

Today I went for the Yellow Line option because I wanted to see the Potomac and got a bonus: a singing trio on the Gallery Place platform.

Which choice do you make?

Married, mortgaged, and soon to be a father, Wayan Vota is in the fast lane to mid-life respectability – until the day his brood finds his intimate journal of global traveling and curses him with the ever-eternal reply “I’m gonna be just like you, Dad!”

9 thoughts on “Metrorail Routing Pop Quiz

  1. I’d definitely take the Yellow. But I would not call it Yellow via L’Enfant Plaza. I’d call it Yellow via Gallery Place as that’s where I’d transfer…

  2. Interesting post. I face a similar routing scenario on my current commute from Springfield to Federal Center SW – do I ride Blue around through Arlington and downtown or do I transfer – twice, once to Yellow somewhere between King Street and Pentagon, and again to Blue at L’Enfant? Answer – depends on whether I’ve got a good book to read or if I’m running late/in a hurry to get home (it saves me around 9 minutes by transferring twice, assuming normal rush hour trains).

    …Because I’m sure you were curious. :-P

  3. I went to college at AU and flew out of National for four years, and I can tell you from experimentation that the Yellow route is much faster.

  4. I also have a similar routing scenario for my commute. Traveling from north of Mt. Vernon Square on the Green Line to Arlington on the Orange Line, I’ve found that transferring twice (Green to Red at Gallery Place then Red to Orange at Metro Center) is much faster than taking the Green Line directly to the Orange Line at L’Enfant Plaza. Transferring twice saves 10-15 minutes during rush hour, but adds the hassle of dealing with the sometimes immense crowds at Gallery Place and Metro Center and on the Red Line.

    It would be nice if WMATA could find the funding to build its proposed pedestrian tunnel between Metro Center and Gallery Place.

  5. The Yellow, without a doubt. Was it the doo-wop group that sings “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” and “Two Kinds of People in the World” among other things?

  6. hands down yellow. anyone who takes the blue line (barring major track maintenance or incident) is a fool.

  7. Time of day is key. Before 7PM – yellow. Afterwards, Blue as yellow service gets much more spaced out in the evenings.