Metro Trip Planner suggests longer route

September 30, 9:09 AMDC Transportation ExaminerKatherine M. Hill

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I sat down Tuesday to plan my first trip to DC9. I knew I'd drive to a Metro station on the Red Line and take Metrorail to the venue. (Metrobus is a straight shot, but I knew it would take longer with traffic.)

And here's what I found out: Metro's official directions are totally bunk compared to a little handiwork on my own. The difference is small, but I was just undercaffeinated enough to feel incensed.

WMATA's Trip Planner instructed me to take the Red Line to the Green/Yellow Line—Fort Totten is the nearest station, but it also listed Gallery Place-Chinatown—and rid the Green/Yellow Line to Shaw-Howard U.

Even though DC9's Web site instructs visitors to use U Street/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo. Gee that's weird, allow me to investigate on a map!

U Street/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo is less than a block from the club and Shaw-Howard U is four blocks from the club. (It's ridiculously closer than I was prepared for.) Note: See the comments for more. I managed to miss that Google Maps locates a different Metro entrance which would explain why I thought it was three blocks and ended up less than one block. Anyway, some mistakes were made because I'm lazy, and initially wrote this before I went to the show, and then "finished" the morning after. Also, Greater Greater Washington has some great posts with actual insight.

Again, a minor difference, but Metro ends its directions at Shaw even when it plans a Line change at Fort Totten. If I changed at Fort Totten, I'd have to pass U Street, the closer Metro station.

Changing Lines at Chinatown and getting off at Shaw makes some sense, as the Shaw station precedes U Street, but the club is still one block closer at U Street.

Of course, maybe Shaw has working escalators. I had to stumble, trip, and fall my way down the escalator last night, and at this point, I have sighed and stumbled so much on this "out of service" and "rarely broken" escalator that the station manager does all it can to avoid me.

If Metro was going to pour all of that money into its own system, and annoy its Internet savvy users in 2008 by refusing to use Google Maps, you think it could have at least included some form of efficiency in its technology.

Have you tried Metro's Trip Planner and noticed problems?