Now just imagine they’re all Capitals, Nationals or Phillies fans. Oy. (Photo by Caroline Angelo)

If you’re a federal employee, today is another wonderful day off. But if you’re not, well, it’s one of those federal holidays that your office isn’t likely to abide by—meaning that you have to get to work.

And for those that did, Metro has proven to be something of a challenge today. Not only are trains running on a Saturday schedule (albeit with additional trains during peak hours), but transit officials are taking advantage of the day to extend the usual track work. As a consequence, there are fewer trains running, and many of those that are are being forced to single-track—on the Red, Green and Orange lines, for example.

The schedule and the track work have provoked a flood of angry tweets from commuters trying to get to work—some say they have faced 30-minute waits for trains, while others say that the trains they do catch are already packed.

On its PlanItMetro blog last month, the transit agency tried to explain why and how decisions are made to run limited service on federal holidays. Labor Day and Memorial Day, for example, are pretty obvious contenders—most people have those off. But Columbus Day and Veterans Day are different, with fewer private employers offering those as a day out of the office. As such, ridership is much lower than a typical weekday—roughly half—but still higher than it would be on a major federal holiday.

Veterans Day, in fact, has seen the highest ridership of any federal holiday over the last two years, according to Metro numbers. Generally speaking, a modified Saturday schedule seems appropriate—but all the single-tracking seems to be adding to the slow-going trips to work.