Photo by Chris Rief

Does Metro know ahead of time when President Obama’s motorcade is going to tie up traffic in D.C.?

When President Obama and the First Lady dined out with a select group of campaign donors on Monday night, the location of the restaurant—Adams Morgan’s Mintwood Place—was kept a secret from just about everyone. (Obama’s official schedule said he’d be eating out, though it didn’t say where.)

The hush-hush nature of such travels isn’t much of a surprise: this is the president, after all, and the Secret Service doesn’t want to telegraph to potential troublemakers where exactly the man will be at all times. That secrecy, though, is extensive enough that not even Metro is apprised of the president’s movements until the last possible minute.

On Monday, Obama’s visit to Adams Morgan forced police to close off a stretch of Columbia Road, a critical east-west artery that ferries that heavily traveled 42 and 43 buses from downtown to Mt. Pleasant and back. Given the timing—it was rush hour, after all—you’d think Metro would have been given a bit of a heads up so it could adjust accordingly. It wasn’t.

“We actually find out about Presidential motorcades and detours the same way as other motorists—when a bus comes upon a police roadblock,” said Caroline Lukas, a Metro spokeswoman. “When a bus reports a detour, we dispatch a street supervisor to the location to establish a standard detour, and begin the process of sending out MetroAlerts to bus customers.”

During Obama’s visit to Adams Morgan, the alerts were extensive: Lukas said that riders of the 42, 43, L2, 90, 92, 93, 96 and H1 buses were told of the police activity and possible detours. Predictably, that lead to some grousing on buses and on social media, but D.C. residents seem to take the motorcades—and the consequent traffic tie-ups—in stride.

So does Metro. “[G]iven the security benefits from keeping this information tightly held, we fully understand,” said Lukas of the last-minute notices.

If you’ve got a burning question you’ve got answered—though not about anything that’s actually burning—feel free to email us and we’ll get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible.