http://twitter.com/#!/wmata/status/143810529494966273

Ah … problems transacting. Who says transacting? The machines aren’t working. That’s not a problem or anything … putting money on your card so as to ride the Metro is not a big deal. I’m not sure how long this has been going on but the last two times I’ve tried to add money using my debit card it has not worked and I DEFINITELY have money, so it’s not on me guys. So it wasn’t working Friday and Saturday, but I kind of assume those were isolated incidents, because there would have been a riot or something if the machines weren’t working for four days, right? Everyone should hit up the one of those definitely working Cap One ATMs if they need to put money on their cards this afternoon.

Last fall, I was buying shoes (and not at Payless for once or the Urban Outfitters clearance corner) and a sales associate came over and asked me where my mom was because they didn’t like 16-yr-olds shopping unsupervised. 

Last month, all my similarly-aged friends got into a bar without being carded and the bouncer stopped me laughing and said “no way are you over 17.”

No one ever believes me when I tell them I’m the oldest sibling. 

None of this really comes to my advantage anymore - I’m not young enough to get the youth bus discount or children’s movie tickets or really children’s anything tickets and children’s meals are just not enough food for me. But! No complaints. Just because I don’t look my 23.5 plus one month  and some days doesn’t mean I’m not missing out on anything, I think. 

Anyway, all of this is to lead up to this one experience I had on the bus! Yesterday morning on the G8, I was on my way to work probably wearing jeans and sneakers because ties are for lawyers not liberal arts grads. And this woman comes up to me and says, “I just need to tell you - you look good for being in your 40s or 50s!” EXCUSE ME WHAT. Who says that! But at least she didn’t ask me about Homecoming. 

The mystery lives on. Who owns unsuckdcmetro.com? Also, who cares?

WELL I DO, KIND OF, but just because I thought WMATA owned it and was redirecting it to their site. But turns out it might be SOMEONE ELSE who is redirecting it to wmata.com 

After doing some extensive and investigative reporting, WMATA has denied owning it / in answering me have totally verified that whymetrosuckstoday.com is a great and informative website. 

From Dan Stessel, Metro’s communications guy: “hi jason - we do not own that domain… not sure why it redirects.”

WELL WHO OWNS IT THEN? Is it a superfan of Metro? A Metro board member? Is Stessel lying? (I think I believe him). IS IT YOU?

It’s been owned since 2009 - who could have possibly spent the $10 a year or whatever for THREE WHOLE YEARS (it’s renewed til November 2013) to have it redirect to wmata.com? 

WMATA.com is registered with GoDaddy, unsuckdcmetro.com is registered with 1&1, and Metroopensdoors.com is registered by someone named LM&O Advertising in Arlington and has been since August, 2000. I don’t know what all that means but it is worth noting maybe?

All I’m saying is this is a great murder mystery but without the murder so please help me solve it everyone. There is punch and a cheese and cracker plate in the corner. IT COULD BE ANY OF YOU. Snitch on your friends! Snitch on yourselves! I’m just interested at this point.

Here is the official UnsuckDCMetro response to my inquiry, and it is funny:

“it’s unclear who owns that. i never did and never tried—didn’t think the blog would become much of anything. in retrospect i should have. 

anyway, if it’s metro that owns it, i’m sure they’re pissing people off who are being delayed in getting to their final destination.

cheers,

unsuck”

GET IT? PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING DELAYED IN GETTING TO THEIR FINAL DESTINATION? IT’S LIKE REAL LIFE. Also, he or she says “cheers.” Cool. 

Post your theories / information in the comments. Use the “ask” page if you want to anonymously inform on your friends. If The Wire taught me anything, it’s that snitches get shorter prison sentences but then get murdered in cold blood. But with something this important, I think it’s worth it. Also you cannot lose if you do not play.

People abuse the #WMATA hashtag on Twitter to whine and complain about everything ever. Here is a new segment that will feature #WMATA tweets of note. Enjoy!

Twitter user @dclizcox had a very pressing question today for the masses: 

@dclizcox dclizcox Fare machine on bus #6358 not working. How much $ will #wmata lose today from this alone? @unsuckdcmetro @wmata

Rather than celebrating the fact that she’d have an extra $1.50 to spend on a Nutter Butter or a down payment on an eight pack of AA batteries, Lizzie (can I call you Lizzie?) is worrying about how much money Metro is losing from one broken fare box on one bus. Other things she could be wondering about: how this saved money will stimulate spending at local coffee shops and 7/11s, why PETA is attacking Mario, pretty much ANYTHING ELSE… anyways let me perform a series of complex mathematical operations to determine approximately the amount of money Metro is losing TODAY FROM THIS ALONE (not the best syntax, just sayin’). 

WHY METRO SUCKS TODAY: DOING MATH SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO.

According to Metro, there were 452,000 daily weekday Metrobus riders in November 2009 (latest November available … and let’s keep it to November since that’s the month we’re in and all). They have 1,480 buses in their fleet. Let’s assume 3/4ths of those (1110) are running on any given day, and let’s assume #6358 is running on an “average” line. That’s kind of a favorable assumption because if Metro is using buses with broken fare boxes, they’re probably pretty close to running their whole fleet. But let’s keep it at 1110 buses a day.

That means there are about 407 riders per bus per day. Let’s say 15 percent of those come from Metro — that means Metro is losing $1 from 61 people. Let’s say 5 perent of those come from another bus — that’s 20 people who wouldn’t pay anyways. That means there are 407-81=326 people who would be paying a full $1.50 each to ride the bus. Metro is losing $550 PER DAY, or about .0472 percent of its 2010 annual budgeted bus revenue. But think of the $1.50 you saved. It’s totally worth it.

My friend Hannah texted me a few minutes ago to let me know that there are a bunch of people losing it over single tracking on their smart phones right now. Now I want to acknowledge first that single tracking really sucks, especially when you have a Capitals game to watch or you’ve been working all day and just want to be home or you’ve already finished the crossword in the Express and just can’t play another second of BrickBreaker and you’re almost at the point of reading the Washington Examiner even though its a politically conservative waste of paper. I get it! I really do. I’ve probably even blogged about it.

But the thing is, when you’re sitting on the metro and single-tracking starts happening, every single person around you pulls out their smart phones and starts having the exact same uninteresting conversation at once. 

“Jason? Hey It’s me Laura. You’ll never guess what happened. There’s SINGLE TRACKING!! Yeah! I know! On the Metro! Can you believe it this never happens. I HATE THE METRO. I’m going to be late. I’m never late and it’s definitely the Metro’s fault. This is the worst thing that has ever happened. I’M STILL HERE WAITING ON THIS TRAIN SINGLE TRACKING” 

And then when you’re done telling one person over the phone, you log onto your facebook app and tell your 750 facebook friends (this is an average right? Racebook to the be the most popular). 

METRO IS SINGLE TRACKING  BUT THIS ISNT GOING TO CHANGE ANY OF MY BEHAVIOR BECAUSE IM STILL TOO LAZY TO BIKE.  

Ok that probably isn’t going to be what you write but it should be. 

And then when you’re done bombarding all of your fb friends, you can open your smart phone twitter app and tweet to the universe:

@wmatasuckstoday SINGLE TRACKING…Please make this mundane experience interesting and hilarious hashtag hashtag

WHICH WILL THEN BE ENTERED INTO PUBLIC RECORD AND STORED IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, like all public tweets. 

Makes me long for the days of Sprint flip phones and no underground cell phone service, you know? 

People abuse the #WMATA hashtag on Twitter to whine and complain about everything ever. Here is a new segment that will feature #WMATA tweets of note. Enjoy!

Three things happened on Metro today - someone was shot on a bus, someone puked on a car causing some delays, and a deer got hit at Dunn Loring. Let’s get to the tweets:

@emhoov Emily Hoover

@slim828 On a constant quest to teach manners #courtesyambassador #wmata #theyreallyshouldpayme

Things that are more annoying than rude people on Metro: people who call out rude people on Metro. Awkward for everyone. 

@VAhonie Dimplez McGee

#MetroTales Dude standing in front of me on #wmata just yawned. Smells like he had a Shyt Sandwich for lunch :-/ Offer him gum or no??

Suckitup

@abarkmeier AMB

#wmata you drive me crazy. Metro escalators are real time suckers when they never work.

Metro escalators are terrible, but how much time are you REALLY losing? #everysecondcounts

@superzombiepowa Shabnam

Is it a job requirement for you to be a COMPLETE DICKWAD before you’re allowed to become a bus driver or something? #wmata

There were actually more tweets today complimenting bus drivers, so PROBABLY NOT A JOB REQUIREMENT.

@MacStoddard Mac Stoddard

Only at #Rosslyn would you have a ton of people hop on the #wmata and they’re all ugly people, haha.

Please, please, please check out this guy’s twitter and Facebook. He’s the worst. THE WORST. 

@tisOlivia Olivia

Teenagers throwing a soccer ball across the tracks on the red platform at Metro Center…dumbasses… @unsuckdcmetro #wmata

SOMEONE HATES FUN

http://twitter.com/#!/bravojustin/status/135770474478190593

Why can’t we leave alone people when they are sleeping on an empty car AT NIGHT? #creep / sweet shades in every single picture you ever post on twitter

Tweet of the day:

@NoeTodorovich Noe Todorovich

Kiss & Ride? Or Awkward Car Hug & Ride? #metro #wmata

So true

People abuse the #WMATA hashtag on Twitter to whine and complain about everything ever. Here is a new segment that will feature the dumbest #WMATA tweets of the day, complete with a snide comment. Enjoy!

Lots of complaining about Metro being on a holiday sked today … THINK OF THE VETERANS guys. Also it’s 11/11/11/11/11/11/11/11/11 oh my god it happens once a century oh my god.

The tweets:

@wmataplusside Metro’s Advocate

Another successful trip. #wmata (@ Branch Avenue Metro Station) 4sq.com/sWdgHF

COOL, MAN.

@ErinKBrookes Erin Brookes

Why do people always see an escalator as the perfect time to makeout? Don’t you realize that people are on the step behind you? #wmata #pda

Because some couples have a height discrepancy and a moving staircase is a good place to both fix that and to climb / decend stairs. #guilty

@joefarri Joe

@unsuckdcmetro green line down. On shuttle to So Ave. Watching a schizophrenic lady screaming and swinging on the poles. Thanks #WMATA

LETS NOT ALLOW CRAZY PEOPLE ON BUSSES. Definitely Metro’s fault.

@ryanzempel Ryan Zempel

Remember China’s traffic jam that lasted for weeks? Something similar is going to happen on Farragut North’s metro platform someday #wmata

No it’s not. But it is nuts down there. A for effort. 

@Ninjustin Justin

Just missed the train. Who knows when I’ll make it to work now. This really is unacceptable. #wmata

WHO KNOWS when you’ll make it to work? #lordonlyknows

@DennisWhittle Dennis Whittle

#wmata what on earth are you guys doing? It’s been an hour since I arrived union station? Really really bad. Just bad. Amateurish.

Amateurish means “fo’ free” / unpaid … no amateur is starting a transit authority. NOT ON MY WATCH.

Until next time, #bye

There is another, much more popular but also much more constructive blog out there called Unsuck DC Metro … it has been around since, I believe, January 2009. Maybe longer, who knows. It lives at unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com, where it has been very successful.

On November 6, 2009, SOMEONE registered www.unsuckdcmetro.com - I say someone because the exact specifics are hidden on the WHOIS search I did on the domain name. 

But unsuckdcmetro.com redirects to wmata.com, which leads me to believe, through some detective work I like to call common sense, that WMATA owns the domain. That means WMATA is paying like $12 a year (THREE RUSH HOUR RIDES!) to make sure that if you type unsuckdcmetro.com into your address bar you will go to their website, which has nothing to do with unsucking the system. SNEAKY SNEAKY WMATA. 

On that very same day way back in 2009 (Nov 6), Unsuck wrote about how it was probably bad for bus drivers to be texting and driving and eating. Really controversial stuff. WMATA must have been scared and ended up buying unsuckdcmetro.com from 1&1, internet address sellers extraordinaire. On Nov. 6 this year, they renewed it (or, more likely, it was autorenewed and when their CC expired they got collections notice … i hate you 1&1). 

So, WMATA has the website. 

Really, my question is WHY? / who cares if unsuckdcmetro.com goes to an anti-metro blog? / what other websites does WMATA own? / HAHAHHA YOU’LL NEVER GET www.whymetrosuckstoday.com. Let me know if you see anything else that redirects to wmata.com. Metroopensdoors.com also redirects there, but what else?

So Metro hasn’t updated their “Weekly Crime Stats” since June. Last I checked, weekly means roughly every seven days, but every five months is cool too, I guess.

It seems Metro knows they’re supposed to update this kind of often. “The Division posts this weekly crime blotter each Monday detailing the reported crime from the previous week,” they write.

WELL MONDAY WAS THREE DAYS AGO AND I DON’T SEE ANYTHING GUYS.

This makes it much harder to start a new segment I wanted to do every week for two weeks and then stop forever called “Most ridiculous Metro crime of the week.” Metro’s super descriptive “offenses” columns also makes this difficult. “Alcohol violation” is boring. But “peeing on the escalator then puking all over a cop” would probably make a good feature. I guess that’s what “Urinating in public” was (I’m looking at you, 6/14 at 8:05 at PG Plaza. REALLY? 8:05? That’s kinda bad.)

“Playing musical instrument” is also pretty vague — WHICH ONE? Was s/he skilled? Was it a band? Just one ukulele player?

Also didn’t know “lost purse or wallet” was a crime, which is different than “theft II” … WHAT IS THEFT I? I MUST KNOW. I am also intrigued by “ADW Knife or Any Cutting Instrument.” 

Some good news for people who want to eat on Metro … a whole SEVEN PEOPLE were caught eating food system-wide in June. And five of them were just issued warnings. So eat away. And Metro, update your police blotter. That’s like, in the law or something, right?