Photo by Daniel Reidel.

Updated with revised peak bloom predictions.

Spring is in the air, ya’ll. And it smells like Metro is cooking up something special.

We all know what spring means in Washington—gorgeous cherry blossoms accompanied by slightly less lovely crowds of tourists. To accommodate the more than 1.5 million visitors that The National Cherry Blossom Festival brings into town, Metro announced five weekends in a row of regular service.

You read that right: every weekend beginning with March 19-20 through April 16-17, Metro will run at regular weekend intervals. This year’s festival runs from from March 20 to April 17, and the National Parks Service predicts that peak bloom will happen from March 18 to 23.

The only possible times for track work on these weekends would occur after 10 p.m. on Sundays.

Metro expects ridership, which has been down, especially on weekends, to nearly double during the festival. The transit agency does this every year, so it’s not part of General Manager Paul Wiedefeld’s new plan to “restore pride” in Metro.