Inside and outside the Wheaton metro stationOne of the amazing things in the Washington Metropolitan Area is the Wheaton Metro Station. It is 70 meters below the ground or 230 feet. In fact, it has the longest, single-tier escalator in the Western Hemisphere. Yes, you read it well. To get to the rail track and board a train, you need to go 70 meters underground. All the tall buildings in this post are right on top of the Wheaton station.
People are driving cars on top while businesses are being transacted in these tall buildings. But 70 meters below, trains are moving people and cargo from A to B.
Wheaton station is just one of the stops in the Washington Metro, known colloquially as Metro and branded Metrorail, the heavy rail rapid transit system serving the Washington metropolitan area in the United States.
Opened in 1976, the network now includes six lines, 91 stations, and 117 miles (188 km) of route. Metro is the third-busiest rapid transit system in the United States in number of passenger trips, after the Chicago “L” and New York City Subway.
There were 215.3 million trips on Metro in fiscal year 2015, or 712,843 trips per weekday. In June 2008, Metro set a monthly ridership record with 19,729,641 trips, or 798,456 per weekday. Fares vary based on the distance traveled, the time of day, and the type of card used by the passenger. Riders enter and exit the system using a proximity card called SmarTrip.
Metro is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which also operates Metrobus service under the Metro name.
Besides the District, Metro serves several jurisdictions in the states of Maryland and Virginia. In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery and Prince George’s counties; in Virginia, to Arlington and Fairfax counties and the independent city of Alexandria.
Combined with its ridership in the independent Virginia cities of Falls Church and Fairfax, the Metro service area is largely coextensive with the inner ring of the Washington metropolitan area.
The system is currently being expanded to reach Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County, Virginia. It operates mostly as a subway in the District itself, while most of the suburban tracks are at surface level or elevated.
Being here in Washington DC, I am wondering why we cannot, in Africa, at least build good roads on the surface, if we cannot go 70 meters below the ground to build tracks for trains. Shame on us!
Simon Ateba is the publisher of simonateba.com. He operates from Washington DC