Commuter Dispatch: Can't Trust Monday

WHEN WE ONCE WORKED AS A FEDERAL CONSULTANT, all of the seemingly randomly scheduled "regular days off" (RDOs) -- part of the Compressed Work Schedule that federal employees know and love -- confused and frustrated us to no end. One day, a civil servant you needed to work with was in, and then poof, they disappeared the next. No explanation except for an RDO. Red Line commuter Mary Ann Hillier has noticed a similar phenomenon that has been keeping Metrorail a bit more quiet on Monday mornings:

What is up with Mondays and the Metro? Since the spring break I've noticed a peculiar trend: when I board the Red Line early Monday morning there's no one there but me, and by the time the train hits downtown the population has swelled to maybe four. I had thought that it was AWSP -- Alternative Work Schedule Phenomena, those work days when only us wage slaves who carry on the tired tradition of showing up every single weary weekday trudge to the office. But then the Monday evening trains are packed! If the AWSP were in effect, there would be just as few commuters leaving downtown as came in that morning, yes?

I know what you're thinking: it's spring, it's tourist season and hence the evening trains are filled with tourists. I thought so too, as I noticed the flip-flop quotient on the trains was suddenly quite high. (Flip-flops aren't a sure sign of tourists anymore, however -- I mean, if you can wear flip-flops to the White House, then where can't you wear flip-flops?) But, no -- most of my fellow travelers were wearing suits. And I'm not talking bathing suits here. Has liberal leave been declared for Monday morning? Is this an extended April Fool's joke? Have I perhaps lived in Washington a bit too long and now even a change in Metro ridership is worthy of a conspiracy theory? I just don't know.

We don't know either. Has anyone in the peanut gallery noticed emptier-than-usual trains on Mondays?
Photo by James M. Thresher/The Washington Post

Posted By Michael Grass at 2:27 PM on May 1, 2006 Tagged in Free Ride

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