Metrorail is a Series of Tubes

11:30 AM Sep 05, 2006

(Off-topic)

You get the green line and figure the seven-minute wait while three trains pass in the other direction is part of the "black tax," then hit the critical downtown red line artery where the trains-arriving board posts the times to the next trains as:

6
11
12

... and the platform already looks like the Black Hole of Calcutta, further constricted by a traffic conductor whose purpose is to holler at people too close to the platform edge and thereby throttle the defile. I have my suspicions that squeezing aboard the lastest spot on the train might have sired my progeny (and to the gentleman: sir, you may not expect my favors so easily next time), so it's a pity that appropriate precautions were not among the ear-rending condescensions and terrorist bugabooing concussed through the tunnels as a further torment while the clock counts so deliberately down.

And for this you pay a rush hour premium fare.

6-11-12? I saw 3-17-18 once.

I admit I'm spoiled by the majesty that is the Moscow firehose, which is set to christen its 143rd metro station and a second concentric circle line, all of which run trains at intervals of two minutes or less. And nobody would trade Metro for the erratic schedules of ill-maintained buses on meandering routes that passes for public transportation in most of the country.

But seriously, Metro. It's painful.

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