Is the bus pick-up point for after the game at 300 M as well?

From Dr. Gridlock: Yes, the after-game pickup point is the same as the drop off point. It's at 300 M Street SE, on the north side of M, across from the US DOT offices.

Also want to compliment Metro on the N22. While it is underutilized, it is such a quick way to get to Eastern Market and Union Station. It is basically express, stopping at the 2 stations and avoiding Navy Yard and any connections. Great work Metro! (And I NEVER get to say that...)

Glad to hear the N22 is going well, because Metro's service after the ball games is abysmal. I went to all three games against the cubs this past weekend and was shocked to see lines to get on the metro all the way back to the entrance to the stadium. One friend told me that she actually got down into the station platform only to wait 15 minutes for a train. That is ridiculous and inexcusable when you've got 20,000 people waiting to get home.

I ended up walking to Capitol South Friday and Saturday nights after the games and drove on Sunday. If you want to pay the $$$, parking IS available, and it is by far the best option.

Makes you wonder if people will continue to come, knowing they'll either be treated like cattle to the slaughter after the games, or have to hoof it to get to the next closest station.

I was very DISpleased with Metrorail going to and from Saturday night's game.

Normally on a Saturday night we would have driven to Branch Avenue and ridden the Green Line to avoid changing trains, but the Wilson Bridge was closed for several hours due to a car fire, so we parked at Huntington instead, took the Yellow Line, and changed at L'Enfant Plaza. The "Nats Express" bus was not an option since DC United were playing at the same time as the Nationals.

We'll never ride Metro to the ballpark again if doing so requires changing trains. The people who run Metro are a bunch of friggin' morons. Changing trains on the way TO the game, we found that whilst there are three escalators connecting the faregate level to the platform, on the side going towards Greenbelt (where people are going UP to change to the opposite platform) they had ONE escalator going up and TWO going down, and then on the other side, where you board the train to Navy Yard, they had ONE going DOWN and TWO going UP...i.e., on both sides the escalators were exactly the opposite of what was needed to move the crowds. But we got there OK in spite of having to yell at morons for standing on the left on the escalator AS THE BALLPARK TRAIN PULLED INTO THE STOP! (Of all the times you should know to get moving!)

But it's the trip home that caused us to rule out ever riding the Metro to the ballpark again if we have to change trains. Getting on at Navy Yard was painless enough, although they need to do a better job of indicating to the paper-farecard users which lanes don't accept paper farecards. Setting that aside, though, we were on the train quickly enough and we decided to change to the Yellow Line at Archives, rather than L'Enfant, because there would be fewer crowds. That proved true, but unfortunately we had to wait 25 minutes for a Yellow Line train. Seems that Metro focuses entirely on clearing out Navy Yard and doesn't run trains for people to change to (when we finally got to L'Enfant on the Yellow, some of the same people we had seen on the Green Line half an hour earlier squeezed on board). Having to wait 25 minutes for a train is asinine. In the future, I think we'll drive downtown to my office and walk to Gallery Place so as not to change trains....or, if DC United are not playing, we might do the "Nats Express" bus.

Metro gets a big thumbs-down from me for their overall incompetence. Lena Sun said in today's "Roads and Rail" chat that Metro operates trains at 20-minute headways after 9:00 PM on weekends based on rider demand. Perhaps it's time for the turkeys in charge to think about the increased ridership that comes from baseball and to discard whatever PREVIOUS statistics they used in setting headways. 20-minute headways are unsatisfactory, period, after a major event like a ballgame.

Saturday night once the sky opened up, the N22 bus I climbed on was standing room only.

We take the free shuttle as well. But has anyone ever figured out why they can't get the buses closer to the stadium? We got on the first bus at 5:30pm last week and it took us right to the stadium entrance (employees benefit). I saw several routes along the way which would get the buses much closer to the stadium without interfering with traffic or game parking. Or in the alternative, why not allow several disability buses to go right to the stadium. It's a great service, but I'm sure they can figure out a way to improve it - especially for the older, frail, children and handicap riders.

I do believe that the Nats Express bus is operational from RFK when DC United is playing. Instead of parking in Lot 8, you need to park in Lot 7.

Hello, Metro riders, you ARE cattle. Get used to it.

I'd like to see a similar write up for when there are simultaneous United and Nationals games, or even just the June 29th confluence of United playing LA (and David Beckham) and the Nationals taking on the Orioles.

"I do believe that the Nats Express bus is operational from RFK when DC United is playing. Instead of parking in Lot 8, you need to park in Lot 7."

Correct, which is why I didn't regard it as an option on Saturday. I've parked in Lot 7 twice in the past year (once for United versus the Los Angeles Beckhams and once for the MLS Cup) and both times it took forever to get out of there after the game.

Kim mentions this year's Beckham game. Another to remember is on July 12, when the Nationals play the Astros at 7:10 and United take on Chivas Guadalajara at 8:00 in the SuperLiga. Chivas are the most popular team in Mexico and the crowds will be huge.

From Dr. Gridlock: Saturday night seems to have been a particularly bad time for fans who took Metrorail to the Nationals game. During today's online discussion with The Post's Lena Sun and Eric Weiss -- my colleagues on the transportation team -- there were several reader comments about that:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/04/25/DI2008042503019.html

I guess being a wheelchair user clouds my view, but can explain how that will be of any help getting me from the stop to the stadium. From the pic it is not clear to me.

dkf747, just grab on to the back and wheel along! How you'll make it through the Metro crowds is a whole different problem.

I haven't had nearly as bad of a time as Rich or some of the others on Metro. I have had mostly a pleasant experience riding Metro to games. I've gone after work (leaving from Gallery Place), or home (Columbia Heights).

My only complaint is having every other Green Line train terminate at Mt Vernon Sq after nighttime Nats games. Those of us living uptown and in Maryland on the Green Line now have to wait 5-10 minutes for the next "real" Green or Yellow Line train to get us to our homes after the game. The terminating train reverses course to head back to the Navy Yard. I understand; they don't have enough cars to run all the routes to capacity.

"dkf747, just grab on to the back and wheel along!"

What a great idea! Not!

"I haven't had nearly as bad of a time as Rich or some of the others on Metro. I have had mostly a pleasant experience riding Metro to games. I've gone after work (leaving from Gallery Place), or home (Columbia Heights)."

That's because you're not changing trains. I found that Metro worked well when I rode from/to the office (walked to Gallery Place and got the ballpark-bound train from there, then rode back to Gallery Place afterwards and walked to the office to retrieve the car), as well as for Opening Night when I rode from/to Branch Avenue. Not changing trains makes a huge difference.

The other night during the interminable wait at Archives it looked to me like it was more than every other Green Line train that was terminating at Mt. Vernon Square, though. I believe we saw a single train headed to Greenbelt.

I'm sorry Metro isn't perfect. That is just a fact of life. While I agree that 20 minute headways is a bit much for after a game, I honestly think Metro is doing a good job getting people in and out of the stadium.

The reason why every other Green line train turns back at Mount Vernon Sq. is simple...the vast majority of Green line riders that get on at Navy Yard are not going all the way up to Shaw, Columbia Heights, Greenbelt, etc. I'd venture to guess that 80% of the people on the train get off at either L'Enfant or Gallery Place to transfer to other lines. It is absolutely positively not an effective use of resources to run 4 mostly empty trains all the way to Greenbelt when they can easily run 2 fuller trains to Greenbelt and then send 2 trains back to Navy Yard to pick up more people and take the majority of them to where they want to go: Gallery Place and L'Enfant.

Another issue with post-game service is where to store trains ready to accept the crush of baseball fans and when to put them into service. What they appear to be doing on the green line is storing trains on one of the two tracks between Anacostia and Navy Yard. They single track the Green Line between those two stations. Then when the crush of people come, they release those trains 1 by 1 to take people out of Navy Yard station. But that does inconvenience normal green line riders who have to put up with that single tracking zone. It would be difficult to do that on other lines. They would need to have trains lined up on the Blue/Orange lines and on the Red Line right near the major downtown transfer stations. We all saw how bad that was when the Red Line was single tracked through Metro Center. So assume Metro doesn't single track and starts trains at the end of the lines. When do you dispatch those trains? Even if you dispatch them the moment the game ends, they will take some time to get to the downtown transfer stations, which may be after the first round of people passes through.

What would be nice though...is if Metro would take a couple of those Green Line trains that go out of service at Mount Vernon Square and instead put them back in service as yellow line trains going to Huntington.

Rich, sounds to me like your best bet is to park at your office and go from Gallery Place. That option gets you closer to the stadium gates than the Nats Express, and does not involve a transfer. Or just take the train from Branch Ave.

The best solution is not to go to games.

6:30 is when most rush-hour parking restrictions end. I just drive downtown and park on the street in one of those "No Parking 4PM to 6:30PM" spaces right at 6:30, and then walk to a nearby green line Metro station. If you are willing to take the Metro just for the last mile, you will get much closer to the stadium entrance then the Nats Express, get home after the game faster than if you would have taken the Metro all the way to the suburbs, and don't pay a cent for parking.

Everyone likes to complain about the inconvenience of getting to the games. Trust me, if everyone drove, it would be a lot more inconvenient with the resulting traffic jams...and it has nothing to do with city or suburban stadiums...all stadiums experience congestion when a game lets out. The fact that small numbers of people are driving to a lot of disperced parking locations means that once you get back to your car, there are no jams aside from the normal delays.

Why is anyone going to games? Don't you know we're in a recession?? Everyone in America is destitute!!!!!

Can we get MPD out to stop people from jaywalking across M street? I was driving on M this past weekend and almost hit several people who decided to walk out at two different intersections against the walk lights while I had a green.

People have a right to jaywalk and bikers have a right to run lights and ride against traffic. It's because we are better than you, you fascist pig.

"Moose," what you describe is no different from anywhere else in DC. Last night I didn't slow down for a fatty who waddled out mid-block on D Street SW near L'Enfant Plaza. No reason to slow down, as she was on the other side of the double-yellow line, but of course she gave me the finger anyway (as if that's going to cause me to stop for her!). About two seconds later a guy in a suit started to walk across the on-ramp from D Street to I-395 against the light when I had the green arrow, but my horn stopped him pretty quickly.

Earlier, a family with two little kids walked out from in front of a Metrobus into traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue at 7th Street (say, three car lengths short of the crosswalk) right as the light turned green, but of course they didn't speed up or run to the median--they expected everyone to wait for them.

I genuinely do not understand why pedestrians think it's OK for them to behave this way. I also don't understand why the city focuses solely on "protecting" pedestrians and not on reining in the ones who run amok. Certainly drivers have an obligation to respect the "Walk" sign and to stop at uncontrolled crosswalks, but certainly pedestrians are every bit as obligated to respect the "Don't Walk" signs and to stay out of the middle of the street. I especially do not understand why people would walk their little kids out into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. Had they been hit, no doubt the local media would howl about a "dangerous intersection," but I think that if you step out from in front of a bus (where people can't see you) when the traffic has a green light, there's nothing tragic about you getting hit--it's more "Darwin in Action."

The picture showing the small shuttle car isn't too clear. I don't see seat belts being used or where the anchors would be.

Especially with the open sides, are they street legal vehicles?

Please start running jaywalkers down, they are a plague upon the earth.

A few days ago I saw a metro bus, trying to gun it through a yellow light, get stuck in the intersection because of jaywalkers. Then it was stuck there because of the legal crossers. The bus blocked the intersection for the entire light. And what might be worse is that nobody even had the balls to honk.

I take Metrorail from Pentagon to Navy Yard and my wife for three games and my wife and I are very impressed with Metro. We have not always been the biggest fans, but every night we have gone, we have been impressed with the courteous, thoughtful and professional staff along the way. Thanks!

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