L’enfer at L’Enfant Last Night

by Prince Of Petworth June 24, 2016 at 8:00 am 42 Comments

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L’Enfant Plaza, 5:35pm. Photo by Nadine

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L’Enfant Plaza 5:25pm photo by @baseballot

Nathaniel Rakich tweets us:
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“I’ve been to almost 100 #Nats games and I’ve never seen L’Enfant Plaza this crowded.”

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L’Enfant Plaza 5:38pm photo by Helen Bradshaw

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Gallery Place 5:30pm. Photo by Chad

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Gallery Place 5:32pm. Photo by Marc Pitarresi

SWchick

I have so much anxiety just looking at this. :-/
- womp
  
  i just said the same. i am nauseated thinking about it. and my hands are starting to sweat.
  - SWchick
    
    Reminds me of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. L’Enfant looked exactly like this except everyone had tons of extra stuff; hats, scarves, gloves,(it was so cold) cameras, chairs.. etc. etc. A mess!
- FridayGirl
  
  Me too. This is terrifying. Thank heavens I have the ability to walk/bus home and not have to deal with this. I don’t know what I would do….
- Anonamom
  
  Holy shit, how is this not a massive safety risk?!
  - Anon
    
    It is quite dangerous.
  - anonn
    
    It is a massive safety risk
    - justinbc
      
      Haha yeah, as if that’s ever stopped things from happening on Metro.
      - Anonamom
        
        I agree with you justin, but it just seems ridiculous that such a small space would be so obviously over capacity and no one does anything about it. Could you imagine if someone yelled fire in that mess? There’s normal Metro ineptitude and there is blatant, fully visible ineptitude.
- flieswithhoney
  
  This is why I bike to work. Feel so bad for people that don’t have the option to avoid metro.
justinbc

Most of the time these Metro photos really aren’t shocking / abnormal really at all. This though, looks like a bonafide shitshow.
- MtP
  
  Agree on both accounts. Most of the time the photos just show a platform of a major core station 4 or 5 deep at rush hour, really not a big deal. This though looks insane.
maryanne

When i see a situation like this, I leave immediately. I dont wait for a train or even hang around in the station. I will leave the station and kill time at a starbucks or something. To me, it is not worth it to wait around and be in such a mess. Plus, I am small, so being trampled (if something were to happen. a riot or a fight) is not something I want to risk.

this is an accident waiting to happen. someone will fall onto the tracks if they do not get this under control.

:-/
- justinbc
  
  You just gotta Jon Snow your way outta that mess.
  - NH Ave Hiker
    
    lol.
  - LittleBluePenguin
    
    Ha!
  - That One Guy
    
    COTD! (comment of the day)
- fka Shawess
  
  I’m not small, and I’m right with you on this. I’d rather walk five miles home than wait one unnecessary minute in that. I guess some people don’t have the choice to walk, but there is always some other option.
- Hill Denizen
  
  I don’t understand why anyone would stay. I get that Ubers and cabs will probably be a mess, but if you’re transferring to B/O/S, walk a few blocks to Federal Center or Smithsonian. Otherwise just peace out and find a bar or coffee shop or a park bench to wait this mess out.
  - ChenChen
    
    I dont understand why people would stay either…
    
    I have seen stations like a third of that crowd and just turned around and walked out.
  - Anonymous
    
    +1. In many cases these types of crowds clear out within 30-45 minutes, and I’d rather circle the block 10 times than stand underground with an increasingly agitated and unreasonable crowd of people.
    - Florista
      
      Unfortunately, this wasn’t happening at Archives – I waited for around 30 minutes before leaving the station. Such crowds make me very uncomfortable, and I have no faith in Metro about controlling these messes underground. Took a taxi – pricey, but at least a tad safer.
- TX2DC
  
  +1 Why the hell are the people even waiting in that? I’d walk clear across town before I’d stand around in that CF. Nope.
samanda_bynes

hey y’all a decent bike costs like $150
Caroline

Its “L’enfern” not “L’enfer” – if you’re trying to say inferno / Hell in French.
- Roger
  
  Incorrect. It’s L’enfer.
Caroline

Oops. My bad. Title is actually correct…
Emily

I got to the platform at Gallery Place yesterday right after the initial problem train broke or whatever. It seemed at first like it would just be a normal train out of service situation where the next train would just be extra crowded. I stayed for another 10-15 minutes as the platform got more and more crowded with no communication from metro before I bailed and got a taxi. It was turning into quite the shitshow with no real sign of movement of trains in either direction other than one southbound green line train on the wrong side. Very odd.
CapitalDame

Those of us who live on the green line had a hell of a time getting home yesterday. I was waiting at Farragut North when a neighbor warned me that they weren’t letting anyone else on the platform at Gallery Place so I left to go to Farragut West, and then couldn’t transfer to green at L’Enfant because of the crowds. So I walked home, took about 90 minutes total for me to get from my office to the bar in my house to make a stiff cocktail.
NH Ave Hiker

I got done with my commute just as this was happening, thank god for government hours.
equidistance

I was going north on the Green line yesterday at about that time and that platform was fine. I’m so glad I live north- it’s the second time this week that the southbound platform at L’Enfant has been totally crazy at evening rush.
Planner

Missed all this because I was standing up above, on 7th Street, waiting for the bus…

unfortunately, I was waiting for the 54 which is having its service in that neighborhood eliminated starting Sunday.

So — next week, it’s either down into l’enfer or an PITA transfer from the 74 bus.
dtsb

Thank goodness for Twitter – saw this mess via tweets from Martin DiCaro and unsuckdcmetro as I was commuting home from Court House to Petworth. Got off at Metro Center and walked to Gallery Place, hopped a 79 home, in the same, if not less time than my normal commute. Always good to check Twitter and have a backup plan to *hopefully* avoid messes like these.
- Effie
  
  Yes, the best way to avoid a mess like this.
Rider

Piste dangereuse!
Pixie

Holy sh*t that is bad. What caused this? Was it Safetrack or some other single tracking incident?
- K
  
  I think it was a combination of SafeTrack (no blue line service so people working downtown and living in Northern VA on the blue line have mostly been metro’ing to L’Enfant and transferring to Yellow), the Nats Game, and apparently there was single tracking because of something going on around Mt Vernon Square.
  - madmonk28
    
    There was no Nats game. They’re on the road until Monday the 27th.
    - Bg
      
      There was the Congressional baseball game at nats Park, but no actual nats game because they’re gone until Monday’s game.
Aglets

oh. oh my god. I’m having a panic attack just looking at the photos.

Serious question- has a capacity been established for the metro stations? Meaning that there’s a posted number for how many people can safely be in a metro station?
I realize it would be hard to keep it accurate with trains coming and going but the first photo legitimately looks like three more people added to the throng, and someone is landing on the tracks!
- Kathryn-DC
  
  Yes, there is a stated capacity for each WMATA station, which I don’t know personally off the top of my head, but I’ve seen the numbers thrown around in conversations about this in past. There has also been talk of having platform monitors for situations like this.
Bluelinerider

You guys get that thousands of people that work downtown and live in VA that normally take the blue line have to find other ways, and if that way is metro it’s the yellow line. Has not been a pleasant experience having to do so. Can’t wait till they shut down the blue and yellow!

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