Metrovoidance!

On a week when I originally thought I'd be riding the train again I'm back on the bus. A closer reading of Metro's scheduled shut-downs and closures showed that I'd be unable to make a connection I need to make to reach the office.

The bus isn't a bad option; in fact, it's better in many ways. But the schedule is limiting and it makes for quite a scramble in the morning. No more bucolic drives to Vienna via Vale and Hunter Mill Roads.  No more give in the day. It's regimented from beginning to end.

But the change does one very big thing: It keeps me off Metro. And around here, that's the new name of the game.

The general manager recently pleaded with riders of three affected lines to find alternative transportation. The patchwork system of shuttle buses could only support 30 percent of the usual daily riders, he said. According to yesterday's reports, that's about what happened. Seventy percent of the people who usually ride those trains found other ways to work or telework.

So Metro has become a public transit system without a public. And my commute, like so many other people's, is all about Metrovoidance!

(Metro during the "Safe Track" program: They don't keep those lights low for nothing!)