DC Metro and baseball

The angry consumer is back. Let me just say that I spent a good deal of time on Thursday traveling to the DC Nationals new baseball stadium. I was not very impressed with the new stadium, but it is a work in progress. Maybe I have been spoiled with PNC Park, but the food selection was poor and there was a minimal view of anything. Outside the ballpark there is virtually no development and no where to go for a quick bite to eat or drink. I think that once building was in place investors should have been breaking ground for some sort of convenience store and/or restaurants. I’m sure it will happen soon enough and is under development right now. The fact that I paid $7 for $18 seats and then received 5 free tickets, 3 of which were 3 rows from the 3rd base foul pole, shows how great the demand for Nats tickets and development really is.

As I stated earlier it took me some time to travel to the game. I drove to the Metro station and parked the car. I quickly arrived at the stop and was given the wrong information on the price of the subway ticket by a woman who would not accept my money, or for that matter teach me to use the vending machine card dispenser. Thankfully another frequent customer helped me out. I was also quite disappointed that I had to pay $10 to park at the Metro station. Yes they advertised it as $4.75, but either I did not understand the sign correctly, or they mislead me to understand that you have to pay an additional $5 for a Smartcard, a piece of plastic that probably costs $0.10 in addition to my $4.75 to park. If I was a regular using the DC Metro maybe I would not have issues with them. However DC is a major tourist center and should be a lot more “user friendly”. I have been to NYC, London, Atlanta, and several additional cities in Europe and the States whose system is so much better. The only city that has worse public transportation is Florence. However my experiences with public transport in that city are a whole story in itself, which involves a high fair and the possibility of jail time. I will save that store for some other time.