Free ride

Riding Metro comes with a lot of downsides. First, it always seems to be a crapshoot whether you make it to your destination before the End of Times. We actually just went through a two-week period where Blue Line trains were only running from Arlington National Cemetery to somewhere in Springfield, and Orange and Silver Line trains were single-tracking between Smithsonian and McPherson Square for repairs…and running at 20-minute intervals instead of eight. Red Line trains were bollixed for different reasons, but that’s pretty much a standing affair these days.

Basically, they announced at the beginning of August that everyone in the metropolitan DC area should just stay home.

And then WMATA management has the unmitigated gall to moan that they’re losing riders so they’re going to need to raise more revenues. One of their tactics is to increase charges to park at the garages and lots by their stations, and to charge for parking on holidays and the weekends, when it used to be free on those days.

When I lived in Arlington, I could walk to the Pentagon City station, so parking wasn’t an issue. Here in the People’s Republic, I live about a mile from the station. I could walk, although I’m disinclined to do this in the summer. The Metro bus that goes by my house only runs for about three hours in the morning and again in the afternoon, so that’s not an option. I’m ideologically opposed to paying $5 a day to park in addition to the fare to and from the District, and there’s no street parking anywhere near the station.

Back in pre-Metro days, there were park-and-ride lots on either side of the Toll Road, where commuters could leave their cars and take buses into Arlington, Tysons and DC. With the advent of the Silver Line, one of the lots disappeared altogether, but the other is still in use for both bus and rail commuters. As you might imagine, however, it fills up fairly early—by 0730 all the spaces are gone, and it’s a $5 space in the lower reaches of the parking garage under the station for you.

There are parking lots for office buildings, but of course they’re all posted as NO COMMUTER PARKING and TOWING ENFORCED.

Well, the other day, I was on my morning walk, when I noticed this guy coming out of a parking structure for one of those NO COMMUTER PARKING buildings. He did not head toward the building, but toward the station.

It was not quite 0740, and if this guy’s a regular, he should have known he was too late for the parking lot—which indeed looked like this:

But he was also clearly too cheap to pay to park in the garage. I appreciate that cheapness, but dude—you may find that this “free” spot turns out to cost more than $5. Maybe think about getting up earlier…