In addition to the metro running right along 66, there is also a nearby bike path that goes into DC. My husband walks to the metro most days and rides it regularly. He never drives in because we are a one car family and parking costs are high at his office. We also just don't support driving commutes when mass transit is so close by.
During metro construction there were some delays but his commutes have mostly been seamless. I don't understand the safety issues of riding metro a previous poster described. Maybe late at night on certain lines? But I agree, if we care at all about the environment people need to start taking metro or biking the W&OD. It's just ridiculous not to (unless you have extenuating circumstances).
There are only so many seats on metro so if even a 1/4 of those drivers were to hit mass transit, there would be huge wait times, so long they wouldn't get to work at all. It doesn't take much to bring mass transit to the brink and whenever I rode mass transit, a slight delay and everyone is huffing and puffing like the world is coming to an end.
And not many really care about the environment, at least, it doesn't seem to me many people are truly willing to suffer to help the environment. Recycle - big whoop, so easy, but they pat themselves on the back for it. That's about as far as most go. I rented my upstairs apt to a 26 year old grad student, his mom is a climate scientists, he said, the AC ran into the middle of October and when she visited, while the weather was quite nice, the AC was still blasting. I live within a mile of the school, he drove even while having a bike. He was vested in climate science too, said he couldn't work for an oil company, would disappoint his mom, one day in passing I mentioned how hot it was, he said, its going to get a lot hotter. I had to laugh. All talk no action was my thinking and here in these United States is what I mostly see. When I lived in the SF Bay Area, those too are hypocrites, they talk, but they don't act. Actually all of CA is so zoned that on any given day to run errands, it requires a vehicle, because every imaginable business type is in a zone. When I was growing up, my dentist and doctor operated from their home, try that in CA, the neighbors will complain. Another bone I have picked with CA is the overtime after 8 hours of work law, the law is for union members, because they benefit greatly and union leadership literally owns politicians in CA, it won't ever change, but here's the deal, tens of millions of retail workers, fast food and walmart types, these people get 6 hours maximum because of that law so that's the company workaround, schedule max 6 unless in a supervisor role, but 6 hours isn't enough to survive so after commuting to job 1, millions commute to job 2 for 6 more hours. The law is hard on the environment and hard on workers at the bottom, but bet your last dollar union leadership will never allow it to change. Meanwhile my wife's 80 year old mother lives in the Philippines where it is very hot with no AC and NO LIE, when she has to enter the hospital for whatever illness, she wants a room without AC. Yeah, they actually have rooms without AC. Try that in the US. Try that in any gov't building in the US. Most people in the US and other countries with western values just won't accept much discomfort even to save the planet. Their way to save the planet is to find a less resource intensive way to provide AC, but they still want their AC. The same goes with other comforts. In the summer, they baby the kids, if it is too hot, schools that aren't air conditioned close. Just f'ing amazing. Oh crap, how awful, kids sweating so much they can't concentrate. It is so freaking laughable. But you know, the US has standards ... standards for wasting natural resources, that is. When traveling abroad it is so easy to see the US as a massive population of snowflakes.
