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Comment by tacomonstrous | Hacker News Reader

How's the public transit there? I was under the impression that this was a major piece of the puzzle for HQ2.

Not great, but could be a lot worse. Crystal city is on two of the main subway lines. And has a Virigina regional rail and Amtrak stop. There is a pretty major bus depot there too.

The downside is one of the subway lines only runs every 13 minutes during rush hour. And that cannot be increased without decreasing runs on other lines (because they share a tunnel). Maybe Amazon will convince the governments to run more on that line (and take it away from the other lines).

edit: Forgot to mention that airport access is probably the best place in the entire country. You could basically walk to national airport.

I think Metro hit bottom a couple years ago and is on the way back up. Dedicated funding (finally!) will enable steady improvement. If Amazon comes to town and uses their clout to push for better transportation, that will on accelerate things.

I’m really hoping Amazon can be the force that helps crush WMATA resistance to reform. All hail Bezos.

It's already had an impact. The stalled metro stop between DCA and Braddock (next to one of the potential build sites) magically started moving forward again a few months ago.

I think you might actually be understating how convenient the airport is. No need for “basically”: it’s quite doable, and there’s even a trail connecting them.

There is one Metro stop directly in Crystal City, an express bus with dedicated lanes from another close station, and Metro is in the final planning stages to build a new station between those. The VRE, a Virginia light rail system that uses Amtrak tracks, has a stop in Crystal City. There are bus routes too, and bike lanes. And Reagan National Airport is directly adjacent.

Public transit to Crystal City is about as good as it gets. Which is good, because the road traffic sucks.

The metro is trying to improve the safety of the system after some fatal accidents a few years ago. The work force is unmotivated and maintainence reports are falsified. The wait times for the weekend suck and the system shuts down pretty early leading to fans at sports stadiums chanting, “metro sucks.”

Even with all that it’s one of the better transit systems in the US. Not as good as Chicago or NY, but for the size of city it’s good.

metro is somewhere between "incompetence that leads to dead passengers"[1], "shit's on fire, yo"[2] and "meh". Lately the biggest scandal is they turn down ads for the ACLU in favor of Northrup Grumman.

In any event it's generally minimally acceptable at best. Dumping a ton of people onto it will not help matters.

[1] https://www.aboutlawsuits.com/dc-metro-crash-lawsuit-filed-4... [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/washington-d-c-s-metro-...

It's super fashionable to bash Metro, but the system today carries over 600,000 riders per day, and that's about a 20-year low. The system is in a hole of deferred maintenance, but attacking it pretty aggressively.

I ride Metro every week day (bus + train) and look: I'm still alive! And on time almost every day. I much prefer it to driving.

Metro used to be very good. Today it’s..... ehhhhhhhh, not so much.

Still, there is literally a metro stop right in Crystal City that's on 2 lines, and with all the underground corridors between buildings you can get tons of places without even going above ground. If I was an Amazon employee moving out there, damn straight I'd be finding some place right on a metro stop.

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