How fucked is your Metro commute home going to be today? Not fucked? Kinda fucked? Or, alas, totally fucked?
Columbia Heights resident Kyle Jennings created a website for local commuters to determine just how severely Metro plans to screw with its transportation plans. The site, howfuckedisthemetro.com, is an offshoot of the similar howfuckedismetro.com and lets users know the real-time schedules of the D.C. area’s Metro trains. Unlike the old one, Jenning’s new site (which launched Tuesday) includes information for the Silver Line and is tailored for smooth smartphone use. There are plans to eventually consolidate the two sites. (The founder of the original website, Joey Brunelle, no longer lives in D.C.)
“This is a lot more fun,” says Jennings. “It’s a lot easier to use than [Metro’s] Trip Planner. This is a one-stop shop.”
The app culls data from Metro every 30 seconds and provides arrival times of upcoming trains at each Metro stop on each line. The site also lets riders know how fucked their commutes are based on whether the wait time is below or above the average wait time for that time of day. During rush-hour times, for instance, if the wait for a particular train is between zero to four minutes long, the website will say Metro is “not fucked.” If the wait is between five to six minutes, it is a “short fucking wait”; if it’s between, seven to 10 minutes it’s “kinda fucked.” Jump to a more than 16 minute wait and Metro is “totally fucked.”
It should be noted that even if Metro is running perfectly, the website will still describe the transit system in terms of how fucked it is. Jennings himself concedes that Metro is not always fucked.
“It’s not as fucked as everyone thinks, but it can be pretty fucked,” Jennings says. “I just put it out there.” Plans are underway, according to Jennings, to include Metro incident reports on the site, letting users know whether a train is delayed for track maintenance or any other type of hiccup.