Originally Posted by
nineworldseries
Wrong. Waited for 20 minutes and no bus. Consulted the online WMATA site the entire time, which made -zero- mention of the fact that on New Year's Day, the buses operated on a Sunday schedule. I only found out that tidbit by calling some hotline listed at the bus station.
Ick. Metro's mobile site has sizable links to rail and bus advisories, but that info is easier to miss on the desktop site. But in any case: Given the choice between waiting on the street for the 5A and waiting downstairs for the Silver Line, I'd go with the train even on a holiday.
The 5A is, as you saw, not that reliable, to the point that I can't even count on it arriving when
NextBus real-time data says it will. And then you have I-66 traffic to contend with, which can congeal any day of the week.
I guess the larger point here is that a year ago, I expected better things from Phase 1 of the Silver Line. My hope was that when you got off the train at Wiehle, you'd have not one bus but four--a more frequent and cheaper Washington Flyer, a re-routed 5A and two Fairfax Connector routes that would take a little longer but cost less than the other options.
Instead, we only have MWAA's more frequent and cheaper bus. WMATA couldn't be bothered to edit the 5A's stops to account for almost $3 billion in new rail infrastructure, and Fairfax Connector appears incapable or unwilling to meet the standards of most other bus systems around D.C.
The Silver Line and the Silver Line Express by themselves work sufficiently well for me not to think about taxis (though I won't rule out jumping in a cab from Wiehle to IAD if I just miss a bus there). But my experiences over the last several months leave me even more anxious to see Phase 2 of the Silver Line enter revenue service. That cannot happen fast enough for me.