If you've caught yourself marveling at how mild our winter was, you can now boast (or lament) that it was the warmest winter on record. more ›

In case you hadn't already noticed that Washington, D.C. is currently chock-a-block with tourists, WMATA shares that Thursday actually marked its second highest weekday ridership ever. The Metrorail system saw a whopping 877,890 trips on Thursday, thanks to a combination of the peak of the National Cherry Blossom Festival and a sold-out Washington Capitals game. The figure is second only to Jan. 20, 2009, the day of President Obama's inauguration. more ›

As the snow totals have been steadily piling up, we've all been thinking that we can't remember ever seeing this much snow in D.C. before. Well, now it's official: no one has seen this much snow in D.C., at least not since Pat Collins' great-great-granddad started sticking yardsticks in area snowpacks back in 1884. As of 2:00 this afternoon, the National Weather Service reports that this is indeed the snowiest winter in recorded history for D.C., Baltimore, and Dulles. more ›

In case we haven't been doing a good enough job drilling it into your head, public transportation has become increasingly popular in the D.C. metro area since gas prices have been going through the roof. Today, WMATA announced that Friday, July 11 saw the Metrorail system hit a brand new all-time record high for ridership, surpassing even that of the day of Ronald Reagan's funeral in 2004. What contributed to the 854,638 passengers who rode Metro on Friday? There was a Nationals game, and there was a large convention in town. But there are Nationals games all the time, and there are large conventions in town near every weekend. The message of this news shouldn't be that unusual circumstances led to a new record; it should be that this was more or less a regular summer day, and Metro smashed its old record. more ›

It's becoming so commonplace for us to receive press releases about how Metro has recorded yet another record ridership day, we're in danger of starting to think these figures aren't that significant -- but that would be a big mistake. Dr. Gridlock noted on Monday that since April alone, nine dates had made their way into Metro's top dozen for ridership, which included last Friday. Now, make that ten.

Hundreds of thousands of people helped Metro set the transit agency’s third highest ridership day in the history of the 32-year-old rail system on Tuesday, June 24. Riders took 831,464 trips, which were 48,534 more trips than the same comparable day last year.