A New Commute

Today was my first day of my new commute route. Well, sort of. We recently bought a place about two miles from the place we'd been renting for the last year, so my metro station didn't change...but now I also have to catch a bus to get there. Both routes included less than a quarter-mile of walking to the first place where I swipe my SmarTrip card.

Now, the buses to the metro normally run once every ~15 min or so, but today there was one sitting at the bus stop just as I rounded the corner (some 40 yards away). So I hustled up and the driver waited for me. Apparently he was a little behind schedule, otherwise I'd have missed it entirely. The bus wasn't crowded when I got on, but it collected several more people along the way. I recognized many of them from the last year I've spent waiting on the metro platform.

The bus pulled into the metro station, but there were no inbound trains listed. I walked up the escalator, only to find my train sitting there with its doors open. Seizing the opportunity, I hopped in and then walked forward...had I done it the other way around, the train could have left while I was walking on the platform.

You almost never see the Metro this empty.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful commute. But it did give me the bare minimum time that I need to factor in for the commute. The nice thing is that I should be able to check my exact travel times on wmata.com. And just for fun, I think I'll record this month's commuting data in an excel file to analyze and fine-tune everything.