Out of Town Rider

A couple of years ago I had an oppurtunity to do some sightseeing in D.C. I rode the Metro and I must say that it was very easy to get around. I had no problems at all, the employees were very friendly and the stations were clean. I even had a motorman in the cab helping me to find my way back to Union Station. All Washingtonians should be proud of their light rail system.

"BoilerBob"
A couple of years ago I had an oppurtunity to do some sightseeing in D.C. I rode the Metro and I must say that it was very easy to get around. I had no problems at all, the employees were very friendly and the stations were clean. I even had a motorman in the cab helping me to find my way back to Union Station. All Washingtonians should be proud of their light rail system.

Thank you for your kind remarks about the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Metrorail System.

Please don't take this personally, The rapid transit system operated by WMATA is not a 'light rail system' as defined by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) or the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). The WMATA Metrorail System is a heavy rail rapid transit system. I, and I believe many other consider it an insult to call WMATA's rail rapid transit system that many of us have grown to know and love 'light rail'. The WMATA's Metrorail System ranks third in annual unlinked trips behind only New York's NYCT and Chicago's CTA heavy rail transit systems as reported in the The National Transit Database.

Sorry. I didn't mean to insult. MetroRail was still very easy to ride.

Sand Box John wrote:The WMATA's Metrorail System ranks third in annual unlinked trips behind only New York's NYCT and Chicago's CTA heavy rail transit systems as reported in the The National Transit Database.

This is the first I've heard that the WMATA ranks behind the CTA heavy rail in ridership. I've always known the WMATA to be second the behind NYCT, but never behind Chicago. On many occasions I've read or heard the WMATA and the local media saying the same. Just to be sure though I checked the APTA website and the CTA's avg. daily unlinked ridership (624,000) is not even close to the WMATA's (1,000,900). The National Transit Database also shows the WMATA' heavy rail annual ridership (259,430,055) to be higher than the CTA's (186,759,524). The CTA's bus ridership however, is nearly twice that of the WMATA's.

"realtype"
This is the first I've heard that the WMATA ranks behind the CTA heavy rail in ridership. I've always known the WMATA to be second the behind NYCT, but never behind Chicago. On many occasions I've read or heard the WMATA and the local media saying the same. Just to be sure though I checked the APTA website and the CTA's avg. daily unlinked ridership (624,000) is not even close to the WMATA's (1,000,900). The National Transit Database also shows the WMATA' heavy rail annual ridership (259,430,055) to be higher than the CTA's (186,759,524). The CTA's bus ridership however, is nearly twice that of the WMATA's.

I stand corrected. I likely transposed data from CTA and WMATA reports.

National Transit Database
Annual Unlinked Trips
Heavy Rail Rapid Transit

NYCT: Document created 11/6/2007 2006 data
1,874,980,539
WMATA: Document created 7/25/2007 2006 data
274,767,272
CTA: Document created 9/18/2007 2006 data
195,169,310