Even though the titles are gone from our individual blogs, I’m sure you’re familiar with Bobby Cox, and his posts, previously catalogued under the title, “The Orange Line.” I’ve been waiting for a while for Bobby to say something about today’s topic, but since he hasn’t, I’m gonna go ahead and steal his thunder. *grin*

While the DC Metro system is definitely a useful transportation system, and has its own peculiarities unique to DC, it’s not the only subway/elevated/local train/light rail system in the country. It’s rather new, as subways go: it first opened in 1976. It’s a lot more functional than the one we have out here in L.A., though; for one thing, Metro actually goes to the airport. The Green Line out here requires travelers to hop a shuttle to LAX. The oldest subway in the U.S. is Boston’s, which first operated in 1897. New York followed suit in 1904, and Philadelphia in 1907. Earlier systems were elevated trains, such as Chicago’s famed “El,” which first began in 1891, and the even earlier NYC system. The beginnings of New York’s El came in 1870.

Such systems are predominately situated in the older, colder parts of the nation: the Northeast. Because these areas are so old, there’s a lot of history involved, both within the systems themselves and prior to public transportation as we know it. New York City recently came face to face with its past in December, 2005, when MTA workers digging under the Battery found themselves staring at a part of the wall of the original Battery. As the article states, among the items found was a halfpenny from 1744. Other artifacts included bits of old pipes and Delft pottery. Just a little over a month later, in January 2006, the workers ran up against another pre-Revolutionary wall.

I’m not sure how New York and MTA will deal with the wall, but I’m sure they will preserve it in some way. What might be really cool if they could do it is to incorporate part of the wall into the tunnel (not sure if that’s even remotely possible??). Imagine taking a trip, either a visit or a commute down to the tip of Manhattan, and as your train goes rumbling by, passing a wall that’s more than 200 years old.

One thing I enjoy about the NYC system compared with other transit systems are the different stations and station entryways. Some of the older stations, such as Fifth Avenue, have multi-colored mosaic signs on the walls with the name of the station. Compare that to say, the sterile blandness of the station signs of DC Metro or San Francisco’s BART. Quite a few stations contain art as well; for some examples, you can go to www.nycsubway.org, where you can click on the link to the left under “Stations” and see some of the varied spaces that make up the NYC subway. For another take on the stations, see this.
When I first visited DC, not long after the Metro first opened, it was in contrast to the NYC system, which I had seen not too long before. During the 70’s and early 80’s, the filth, dust, and graffiti-sprayed cars of NY made quite an impression on my elementary-school mind (so did the Times Square of the era, but *ahem*, that’s a story for another time…). In contrast, I entered the DC system and felt like I was entering a hangar from Star Wars- huge, sleek, modernistic, and rather sterile. As I got older, visited more and more cities across the country, and used different public transportation systems, I viewed DC Metro and the NYC subway differently. Today, DC still strikes me as somewhat clinical and sterile, while NYC seems vibrant and eclectic.

SO… what to do? I suggest that perhaps DC, when it has a chance to set aside some money (ha!), try to diversify its stations. For example, you could install fog machines in the floor at Foggy Bottom, and lend some aura to the area and station’s name. For Friendship Heights, you could have children from local schools design murals around themes of friendship. For the stop at Arlington, you could have the floors or walls (or both?) redesigned in a manner befitting the solemnity and history of the locale. At Eastern Market and other neighborhood names, you could have historic murals of what the area looked like once upon a time. Not only would this kind of project add color and diversity to each station, they’d make the stations easier to identify, more distinctive as departure points/destinations, and add something to look at for the commuters on their daily journeys.

What do you think? How would you improve the Metro system? Just the stations, or is there something else that’s currently lacking?

[P.S. for those you that are *really* interested, Zachary Schrag, currently a GMU history professor, wrote his dissertation on the Metro system. It’s supposed to be out as a book next month: The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro. Might be an interesting read… or not.]