April 27, 2006
Celebrate 30 Years of Metro With Tchotchkis
Do you spend any part of your morning commute in the Gallery Place/Chinatown stop? Can you alter your plans tomorrow morning to be there? If so, you could be one of the lucky Metro riders picked out by the official 30th Anniversary "Prize Patrol" between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Friday, April 28 to receive a Metrorail key chain, notepad, lapel pin or similarly adorable but actually worthless offering.
Surely there are Metro riders out there who would be thrilled to get a gift of a ball point pen or plastic mood ring from our WMATA overlords. Several DCists are no doubt among them. And it's nice to see Metro showering their customers with a little appreciation now and again. But we're just going to say it: They couldn't come up with something we could actually use? Like, oh, say, Farecards with $5 or $10 on them?
For those of you who can't get to Gallery Place tomorrow morning who are feeling left out, fear not. Quoth the press release:
As part of the 30th anniversary celebration, the prize patrol will visit one station each month through March 2007 during the morning or evening rush hours. They will reach riders on all five rail lines in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.Now to set the timer to see how long it takes Metro to put up signs reminding us not to leave newspapers and unwanted prizes on train cars.
Photo snapped by Flickr user sabre0link.
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Those of us who gutted it out to the bitter end on the subway tour with Dan Tangherlini last weekend as part of www.walkingtowndc.org already rec'd our lapel pins, and copies of the 25th anniversary hardcover commemorative book.
The tour maybe started with 150 people, but the hardcore crew was maybe under 20... (we ended at Farragut North where we saw a rendering of a proposed walking tunnel between Farragut North and Farragut West).
A lapel pin isn't too obtrusive, a tsochtke sure, but not too bad. I always cringe when I see people at community forums taking boatloads of anything that isn't nailed down...
If Metro wants to win us over, it's not with pens and junk. Take that money and apply it to 8-cars trains at 2-3 minute intervals, more law enforcement agents on trains, cleaning the buses and making the escalators work. Then, I would feel appreciated.
I want to see them on the upper Rosslyn platform trying to hand out free crap during rush hour. That would be fun to watch, in a really sick twisted way.
Free fare cards would be cool, as would sweeping out the buses more than once a week. Of course if the Metro powers-that-be ever rode the rails with us commoners then they might already know what we want.
TC
I was at Gallery Place-Chinatown around 8:45 this morning (but I didn't read this post until after I got to work) but I didn't get the prize :(
do people have metro parties like we do in new york and toronto?
check out this video
http://www.newmindspace.com/happybirthdaysubwayparty.mov