I love my MARC

One of the many factors that weighed in on our decision to buy our home in Riverdale Park, was the convenience that the MARC service offered in terms of my getting to work, and leaving the car at home!

These stats about the DC Metro area come from the AAA and were published in today's Washington Post (9/4/07), Metro section, p. B2:

3.3 million vehicles in the area
1.7 million people who drive to work alone every day
900,000 people headed to school every day (schools and colleges)
700,000 people riding Metro (is that actually people? or trips?)
446,000 people riding Metro's buses
70,000 people riding trains into Union Station (MARC, VRE, Amtrak)

Only 70,000?!? Wow. Obviously the MARC trains aren't convenient for everyone - but for a town like Riverdale Park, I have to think that the MARC is a very underutilized resource.

From our lovely MARC station in Town Center, it is a 10 minute ride to Union Station - for me it's then another 15 minutes by Metro to Farragut North. All told, half an hour or 35 minutes door to door, from my home on Riverdale Rd to my office in NW. I nominally pay $100 for a monthly MARC ticket and $2.70 per day (roundtrip, Union Station to Farragut North) on the Metro -- but due to Uncle Sam's penchant for providing perks to the middle class, I save a quarter of that by purchasing the tickets with pre-tax dollars through my employer. If I go to the office 20 days a month on average, that's effectively $3.60 per day for the MARC + $3.89 per day for Metro = $7.49 per day total -- and the car stays in the driveway. If I drove to work I'd pay more than that just for the parking downtown -- never mind the gas, wear and tear on the car, and increased insurance premium. And if I drove to the Metro, I'd save the $3.60 for the MARC everyday -- and use it to pay $3.50 for parking! (Plus it would cost me additional for the longer ride on Metro).

I believe that in my one year of riding MARC to work, I was unable to get a seat just one time. And I can take my coffee on board and savor it all the way to Union Station if I want to (unlike Metro). And then there's the comraderie with all the other MARC regulars... All in all, I love my MARC!