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I posted here a few days ago about considering two jobs in the area. After looking on Google Maps it seems that Rockville MD is right next to a train station.
Question for you all: how is the metro? Is it fast? Efficient? Breaks down often? Always late? Do they have a/c at stations?
Where would be the best place to commute to Rockville from? I'm 28, single, and Hispanic/Asian. Budget is $2500 for a studio or 1 br.
Location: IN>Germany>ND>OH>TX>CA>Currently NoVa and a Vacation Lake House in PA
3,259 posts, read 4,327,486 times
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It sucks because of the panhandlers and rude passengers (I've seen it all from smoking, taking a pee break, drinking/eating, not wearing masks while they are in your face asking for money, playing loud music, fare evading, etc), but it's normally on time and gets you there. The good news is that the trash riders doesn't start riding the metro until afternoon (if there are homeless on the trains in the morning they are mostly sleeping), so my morning ride is more comfortable without being hassled one way or the other. I do dread afternoons though.
Last edited by LakeLifePA; 04-08-2021 at 07:10 AM..
I posted here a few days ago about considering two jobs in the area. After looking on Google Maps it seems that Rockville MD is right next to a train station.
Question for you all: how is the metro? Is it fast? Efficient? Breaks down often? Always late? Do they have a/c at stations?
Where would be the best place to commute to Rockville from? I'm 28, single, and Hispanic/Asian. Budget is $2500 for a studio or 1 br.
The metro is by far one of the better systems in the US. Only behind NYC in my opinion and probably 1 of only 3 places in the US I would use mass transit regularly.
The stations have AC, Wi-Fi and the entire system has cell phone service in the tunnels.
Break downs are very rare. You’re more likely to experience a delay due to track upgrades/maintenance. Being that you’re on the red line, I think they’re done with those - and the ones that aren’t, there’s other connection opportunities & bus bridges that make it relatively painless.
Metro is very clean, great coverage. Service has great frequency. Hours close too early these days (it was supposed to go to 2am starting last year)
Some of the likes have 2 or 3 colors which helps the frequency faster than it already is.
There’s live GPS tracking you can see all the trains. When it’s compeltely back to normal, the trains during peak hours are so frequent, it’s not worth worrying whether anything is late (just whether there was something odd out of the ordinary.)
It’s safe. I ride almost daily during the pandemic, rose once every week or so during the worst of the pandemic and pre-pandemic I rode it a ton. To work, a couple errands after work. Etc. But with teleworking, various restrictions, my reliance has came down.
The hate DC’s metro gets is confusing to me. Maybe Americans just don’t want any mass transit. But I’d love to hear any other city that has better mass transit outside of NYC than DC. Even in San Francisco, a city I find larger than DC, more dense, etc I still would be miserable without a car.
The metro is by far one of the better systems in the US. Only behind NYC in my opinion and probably 1 of only 3 places in the US I would use mass transit regularly.
The stations have AC, Wi-Fi and the entire system has cell phone service in the tunnels.
Break downs are very rare. You’re more likely to experience a delay due to track upgrades/maintenance. Being that you’re on the red line, I think they’re done with those - and the ones that aren’t, there’s other connection opportunities & bus bridges that make it relatively painless.
Metro is very clean, great coverage. Service has great frequency. Hours close too early these days (it was supposed to go to 2am starting last year)
Some of the likes have 2 or 3 colors which helps the frequency faster than it already is.
There’s live GPS tracking you can see all the trains. When it’s compeltely back to normal, the trains during peak hours are so frequent, it’s not worth worrying whether anything is late (just whether there was something odd out of the ordinary.)
It’s safe. I ride almost daily during the pandemic, rose once every week or so during the worst of the pandemic and pre-pandemic I rode it a ton. To work, a couple errands after work. Etc. But with teleworking, various restrictions, my reliance has came down.
The hate DC’s metro gets is confusing to me. Maybe Americans just don’t want any mass transit. But I’d love to hear any other city that has better mass transit outside of NYC than DC. Even in San Francisco, a city I find larger than DC, more dense, etc I still would be miserable without a car.
Agreed. I commuted to DC via the metro for over a decade and found it to be just fine. Is it perfect? No, but it one of the best in THIS country IMO and I've ridden NYC, Boston, DFW and Chicago.
Location: IN>Germany>ND>OH>TX>CA>Currently NoVa and a Vacation Lake House in PA
3,259 posts, read 4,327,486 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlotte485
The hate DC’s metro gets is confusing to me. Maybe Americans just don’t want any mass transit. But I’d love to hear any other city that has better mass transit outside of NYC than DC. Even in San Francisco, a city I find larger than DC, more dense, etc I still would be miserable without a car.
The hate comes from my anecdotal experiences. You can't dismiss that no matter how hard you try. I don't know when you ride the trains (weekends perhaps?) but I ride them everyday, and I have experienced all of the things in my post.
BTW, don't freakin' talk to me about "Americans". I love the idea of mass transit. The problem is the riff-raff they allow on the train, and the fact that there is barely any enforcement of the rules. If the rules were followed and enforced, I'd be hap-hap-happy to ride the train to work.
The hate comes from my anecdotal experiences. You can't dismiss that no matter how hard you try. I don't know when you ride the trains (weekends perhaps?) but I ride them everyday, and I have experienced all of the things in my post.
BTW, don't freakin' talk to me about "Americans". I love the idea of mass transit. The problem is the riff-raff they allow on the train, and the fact that there is barely any enforcement of the rules. If the rules were followed and enforced, I'd be hap-hap-happy to ride the train to work.
I take metro or my bike or a combination of the two daily. I could have a car, but I don’t prefer to drive. Much rather bike and use other forms of transportation.
Riff raff is on mass transit in every city. My anecdotal experiences have shown me of all the other systems, it’s no worse in the “trash” department. I’ve actually always hear people mention DC is one of the cleanest and nicest they’ve been on.
I find DC to have less riff raff than any other system but more importantly, outside of anecdotal, there’s plenty of fact based reasoning why the DC Metro is easily one of the best mass transit systems in the US.
The frequencies, the connections, the stations are placed in useful and walkable areas, the suburban ones are TOD heavy, etc. A lot of systems in the US are set up as a tool where it’s a thing that people drive to a parking lot and take the train into 2 or 3 stations in their respective downtown. DC you can get in and more importantly around the city and close in suburbs.
It might be too far in the future for the OP, but very significant to the red line users up north, the purple line (light rail) will open late 2022/2023. Map of the metro + purple line: https://ggwash.org/images/posts/201507-161255.png
There’s plenty of facts of why it’s useful. And I’d argue the cleanliness is really good but. I won’t dismiss personal experiences.
With that budget you could probably live in walking distance to work, but it's just a bit far from the District if you are planning on hanging out in DC often after work. A happy medium might be Bethesda, or, if you prefer a bit more traditional urbanity and access to bars and urban amenities, Woodley Park or Dupont Circle might make more sense.
Metro works well. Lately it's been relatively empty outside the urban core, so you might even get a train car to yourself heading to Rockville. However, I expect that will change in May as people start heading into the office again. I am not sure how crowded the Dupont-Rockville segment is, but since that would be a reverse commute for you it probably would not be too bad anyhow.
Definitely one of the cleaner systems in the US, and arguably the nicest (obviously NYC is more useful and expansive, but it's a bit ratchet). Obviously, if you go by international standards, no American system is very nice, but by US standards, DC has a pretty robust system. I know the Metro used to have some significant maintenance challenges, but it seems like that has been improving as of late. I haven't had a delayed train in a few years no, so it works pretty well.
I haven't used the Metro since March 2020 but before then used it almost daily for a few years. I despised it, and it was a major reason why I pushed for WFH even before the pandemic. A lot of people talk up the metro either to boost D.C. or because they think hyping mass transit is the 'virtuous' thing to do.
But as of March 2020 the reality of it was that trains can be pretty dirty. If you see the nasty carpeted, old 3000 series cars, man, they make you feel like you gotta take a shower even if you're not touching anything), but hey I've seen even new 7000 series cars with ruined seats, and garbage all over. Food, drink, used tissues, the lot.
The presence of riff-raff is smallest or least noticeable during rush hour on the busy routes around downtown, Northwest and Arlington. You will notice it more during off-peak hours (when trains are emptier) and on the outer portions of the system toward the terminus of lines. There's definitely crime on the metro, teenagers acting unruly (to put it mildly), homeless dudes acting crazy, sex offenders, the whole big city 'thing'. Now you gotta know that the distances between stations are much bigger once you get into suburban areas, and trains tend to be relatively empty, so that's perfect for people up to no good. There was a sexual assault on such a stretch not too long ago, there's been beatings, there's been guys overdosing. That stuff isn't happening at 8.30 am between McPherson Square and Farragut West, so your typical 9 to 5 office worker living in a 'nice' area and getting off downtown probably isn't seeing much of that. But work late and get on/off the train in the burbs,..there's a reason respectable folks tend to avoid the last 1-2 cars.
Punctuality? In rush hour you can throw schedules in the bin. Trains bunch inevitably, and delays are common (at some times on some portions of the system - I'd say they're inevitable). That's even without any technical issues, that's just down to the inability of WMATA to come up with a good headway management system. Mix in potential issues with switches, computer systems, power outages, 'person on the tracks' and other medical emergencies, police operations and so forth (have seen *all* of that) and you could have 45 to 90 minute delays easily. I'm not saying that happens every day but going 3 months without any of it happening is a good stretch. The 'best' part is that when there are delays you will almost definitively be on a packed train as well. Nothing like that 15 minute journey turning into a 1 hour journey while being a sardine in a can along with a hundred other sardines, some of whose armpits will be in your face.
Regarding your question - Rockville isn't a terrible place to live. If I worked in Rockville, I'd live in Rockville or at least somewhere in MoCo because commuting sucks. If you live in D.C. you'll end up taking the red line 'reverse'. It won't be too crowded typically (at least once you get past Dupont Circle and barring any of the issues mentioned above) , but reliability will still be a concern, and it's on that stretch that I've seen some of the dirtiest trains FWIW.
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