April 4, 2006
Transit on Tuesday: Tunnel Vision Edition
Today we take a look at transportation battles in Virginia, new frontiers in subterranean advertisements, and the local expansion of a discount air carrier. Follow the jump for Transit on Tuesday.
Picture taken by MatthewBradley.
Southwest To Commence Operations at Another Inconvenient Airport: Up until now, enjoying Southwest Airline's super cheap fares has meant trekking via bus or finagled ride out into the suburban wilds of Maryland to BWITM Airport. Come this fall, however, a Southwest flight will be a bus trip or finagled ride into the suburban wilds of Virginia away. The airline has requested two gates at Washington Dulles International Airport -- the region's second most inconvenient landing strip; it's expected that Southwest's presence will increase competitive pressure that's been lacking in the area since the departure of Independence Air.
Virginia House of Delegates Counters Senate Transportation Plan: Richmond has been deadlocked over the plan, backed by the Virginia Senate and Governor Tim Kaine, to allow tax and fee increases in order to secure about $1 billion annually in transportation funding. Now, a group of House Republicans is offering its own solution. Delegates would like to see the matter put off, with money coming, in the mean time, from a $1 billion reserve fund, made up mostly of surplus budget funds. Kaine has said he will not allow transportation decisions to be delayed; House Speaker William Howell (R - Stafford) responded, "Vital issues are being held hostage by the Senate's refusal to back off their unnecessary tax hike." Presumably, Howell is lacking sensory perception of some sort; we cannot otherwise explain his failure to notice the traffic that daily backs up near his district or the acres of land in his county that have been clear-cut for tract housing. We wish him many flat tires.
Crazy Flipbook Metro Ads Debut Today: Passengers on the Red Line may notice a new visual experience during their commutes today. Two new ads are beginning their run inside the tunnels between Metro Center and Gallery Place and Gallery Place and Judiciary Square. The ad spots, which promote the Travel Channel and Lincoln Mercury, involve still photos spaced apart through the tunnels, so that motion along their length creates a flipbook like moving image. Have you seen this? Tell us what you think.
VRE a "Victim of its Own Success": The Virginia Railway Express has gone shopping for new railcars, reports the Examiner, in order to replace old cars and slightly expand services. The VRE purchase plan involves procuring 50 new cars for about $92 million. Some 35 of the new vehicles will replace cars that are old or borrowed, while 15 will go toward increasing capacity and service. VRE spokespersons have said the purchases are necessary to meet higher than expected ridership demand.
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BWI is more inconvenient than Dulles or National if you ignore the busy rail line located nearby with 4-5 trains an hour to/from DC, sure.
I would have to say Dulles has the distinction of the region's most inconvenient landing strip. As least a trip to BWI doesn't necessitate a drive through Virgina's uber-hellish congestion, merely Maryland's run-of-the-mill-hellish congestion. It's sorta like the distinction between Calcutta-level poverty and Bombay-level poverty.
Southwest coming to Dulles is both a blessing and a curse.
It will be great when I'm in need of a flight because I line out in NOVA. Getting to Dulles is a breeze compared to Reagan and BWI.
It will be a pain in the ass when I am trying to get home in afternoon. There are already too many jackasses with seven pieces of luggage riding out on the Orange line. Adding cheap jackasses with seven pieces of luggage is going to make things worse. It will also increase the number of tourists with their sticky, screaming, pole-swinging monkey kids clogging up my ride home.
Thanks, DCist. This is the news that I needed today.
TC
BWI is more convenient (slightly) than Dulles for Washington proper. You can take the MARC, and no other Washington airport even comes close to the security lines that Dulles gets.
But hey, at Dulles at least you get a great view of the capitol from the parking lot.
So these new metro ads... are they only in one direction?
I went from Gallery Place to Metro Center this morning and was looking for it and didn't see anything. Is it only from Metro Center to Gallery Place?
Also, I don't know how National is defined as "most convenient" for "the region." Most convenient if you live in Northwest, absolutely, but Dulles is a hell of a lot more convenient if you live in Reston or Herndon or Sterling.
I'm really curious about those ads. Does the train have to be going a specific speed for it to work? Couldn't they have chosen a better tunnel? The train only runs for about 5 seconds between those stations. That's like a 10 page flip book.
Most convenient, easily, for Metro riders. For all of DC, too. I live in NE, and can get to National, with no car, in less than a half hour. No traffic, no parking.
I didn't see any ads during my trip from Gallery Place to Judiciary Square.
Southwest may not have their own flights out of National, but they do codeshare with ATA. At least that's a start...
WMATA says the ads are visible while heading in the direction of Glenmont, but they don't say which side to look out on.
"Most convenient, easily, for Metro riders. For all of DC, too. I live in NE, and can get to National, with no car, in less than a half hour. No traffic, no parking."
Yes, but "DC" still isn't synonymous with "the region."
Matt, where did I say it was? National is on Metro (which covers much of the region in and out of D.C.), and it's centrally located.
Tourists will go batshit crazy over this new technology. Home schooled monkey children will squeal at the sight of TV commercials outside the train windows. Fearful exurban mothers will clutch besnotted little munchkins to the American flag decals ironed across their breasts. Mulleted fathers will cry out, "Golly!" just like Gomer Pyle.
Meanwhile, the eyeballs of world weary commuters will roll back into heads as office workers contemplate targeting annoying redstate Americans in a postal rampage.
I. Cannot. Wait.
Wow turist lover, how immensely depressing and joyless your life sounds. What are you doing wasting your professional-strength ennui in a minor league city like this? You need to get to Paris, tuite-de-suite. There you can train from the best.
I was half asleep (as usual) between Metro Center and Gallery Place, but something moving the windows got my attention. I thought I might be seeing things. I was on the doors-will-open-on-the-right side of the train, in one of the sideways seats by the door. (So I was facing the left side.)
However, I couldn't figure out what the ad was for, or read anything it said. And of course that's a really short tunnel, so it was gone by the time I tried to decypher it. I looked for one on the same side between Gallery Place and Judiciary Square, but didn't see anything but the usual lights.
BWI's way more convenient than Dulles.
I saw the ads on the way home today. They were blurry and the first one was colorful but I couldn't figure out what it was advertising. The second (on the left-hand side between Metro Center and Gallery Place on a Glenmont-bound train, I believe) was for Lincoln cars and basically was a static Lincoln logo. Neither made use of any neat animation tricks so far as I could tell.
Southwest already is at National as well as BWI, so adding Dulles just completes the trinity. I will note that Washington Flyer makes for a relatively quick and hassle-free transit from the city to Dulles, though the drivers are rude.
I haven't flown Southwest since JetBlue became available (I hate sticky Southwest planes, pushy Southwest passengers and having to stop in St Louis no matter where I fly) but maybe their arrival at Dulles will drive down JetBlue's prices a bit. Weekend fares have been a bit grasping lately.
I saw the ad between Metro Center and Gallery Place today and was disappointed. I'd seen a flipbook deal a couple years ago on the T in Boston and thought it was pretty amazing. That one looked like a television ad; this one looked like an incomprehensible blur. They're awesome when done right, though. Maybe the next try will be better.
VRE cars cost almost 2 million per car? Do I need another cup of coffee or is that crazy?
Living in Southwest DC, I have to say BWI is more convenient than Dulles, in the sense that a compound fracture of the tibia is a more pleasant sensation than ebola.
For all of you dinosaurs still taking the MARC train to BWI, allow me to introduce you to Metro's B30 express bus from Greenbelt to BWI. It's cheaper and faster than the MARC train.
Now if we could take dinosaurs to BWI, then I'd fly from there.
Hmmm...pterodactylair.com appears to be available...
Any time saved by flying out of Dulles vs. BWI is lost when you consider that once you get through Dulles security, you have to wait for a shuttle to take you to another terminal to get to your gate.
But I agree on taking the B30 bus, very convenient since I can just scan my SmarTrip card instead of paying $16 for a round-trip ticket on the Washington Flyer.
Those flipbook ads are a tailor-made invitation for the ambitious tagger. The metro/advertising goons have already marked out the most cost-effective interval where you need to put your images to make them work. If only there were a highly motivated stenciler out there to take advantage of this goldmine... if only...
Ooo...Southwest plus eventual Dulles Metro Stop = HEAVEN.