Close your eyes and imagine your hometown. For some the images revolve around endless asphalt and dirt roads engulfed in fields and pastures. For others, a more urban scene floods the mind with its congested streets and hustle and bustle of its pedestrians. Despite both being so vastly different, they each share a similarity: a motor vehicle. There is about a greater than 90% probability that you, the reader of this blog, drive a car, truck, or SUV. It is one of man’s greatest inventions, fulfilling the human need to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. You probably feel so strongly about your vehicle that you gave it a name and refer to the 4,000-pound hunk of mechanical and body parts as “she”.
Now imagine your lovely vehicle being stripped from you as you enter our nation’s capital: Washington, District of Columbia. Here you will find the way to easily (and cheaply, for all you Uber users out there) travel to and from Capitol Hill, across the Potomac from D.C. to Virginia, is the metro. Panic fills your body as you realize you must critically think about which train, even which station, to get on and off of to arrive safely at your destination. If you are wondering how ever to properly achieve this, you have come to the correct place. The guide to understanding how to navigate this system is outlined in these steps:
- Learn The Colors
- The trains are differentiated by their respective colors, and there are two of each color (more on that on the next point). The colors are: blue, yellow, orange, silver, red, and green. Knowing which colors go to the station you want to get off on is the easiest way to quickly become a pro.
- Learn The Directions
- In my previous point, I mentioned how there are two trains for each color. Those two trains go in opposite directions, and each is marked by the FINAL destination they reach in each direction. For example, the blue line trains are Largo Town Center (this one heads toward Capitol Hill) and Franconia Springfield (this one heads toward Ronald Reagan National Airports
- Google Maps Is Your Friend
- Now that you know the colors and their directions, type the monument or museum you want to see into google and see which station it says to go to. Then, figure out the color you need to take and which direction, and you are all set!
Connor Chappell
The Fertilizer Institute
Washington, D.C. | summer 2023
