It’s 5 p.m. and you need to get from downtown D.C. to Dulles International Airport for a can’t-miss flight. Do you brave the evening rush hour headed toward the Northern Virginia suburbs, or ride the Silver Line and trust Metro to get you there?
We set out Tuesday from the corner of 12th and G streets NW to find out. Reporter Ian Duncan and photographer Astrid Riecken boarded a train at Metro Center. Reporter Katherine Shaver and photographer Maansi Srivastava hopped in Katherine’s Honda.
The finish line: the United Airlines check-in counter.
We clocked our time, costs and stress levels. On the kind of rainy evening that typically wreaks havoc on traffic, Metro had a clear advantage and, without parking and a rush-hour toll, would be far cheaper. But Metro has its own potentially migraine-inducing unknowns. While it has become more reliable in recent weeks, a long wait for a train or any hiccup in the system could make the difference.
With Google Maps, Metro’s Trip Planner and other quick research, we assumed Metro would take 64 minutes and cost $6; driving would take 49 minutes (not including the time to get the car out of and into parking garages on both ends) and cost $61 for gas and a theoretical three-day stay in an airport parking garage — excluding the fluctuating rush-hour toll we paid on I-66. An Uber X would take 58 minutes, including the driver’s arrival time, and cost $118.90, according to the app. (Remember, it was a rainy rush hour.)
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But as anyone who’s taken Metro or driven in the Washington region knows, things don’t always go according to plan.
5 p.m.:
Ian: Astrid and I waste no time heading down the Metro Center escalators. A lighted street display had shown wait times for the next train and signage in the station directs us to the airport. Good timing: A train arrives in just under four minutes.
Katherine: Maansi and I make it out of the nearby parking garage’s third level in six minutes. Despite the traffic, my biggest stress comes from not knowing how long it will take to find airport parking. The Dulles website says Garage One is 96 percent full. (Note to self: Next time, reserve a parking space.) If it fills up before we get there — the other garage is already full — we’d only avoid the most expensive terminal-adjacent lot by trekking to the economy lot and waiting for a shuttle bus to the terminal, consuming precious time.
5:15 p.m.:
Ian: We have been in Virginia for two minutes, a big confidence boost. Our 1980s, vintage 2000-series rail car is about half full, and we easily found seats. Things are looking good for Team Train, I think.
Katherine: Heading south on 15th Street NW, we come to a standstill about half a block from Constitution Avenue NW. GPS shows a dismal red line ahead. As we sit, I see the GPS has added two minutes to our arrival time. A few minutes later, we turn onto Constitution and see a heart-sinking combination of red and yellow lines filling the screen of the GPS map.
5:30 p.m.:
Ian: We popped above ground five minutes ago to the satisfying sight of cars on Interstate 66 moving more slowly than the train. We had sat at the Ballston station for a few moments but not long enough to make me worry. The train is cruising through McLean.
Katherine: I-66 inside the Beltway is moving at 47 mph in the dark, heavy rain. At 22 miles from the airport, I notice the GPS has added another two minutes, for a 5:59 p.m. arrival time. The map line turns to yellow as we approach a sea of red brake lights and suddenly come to a stop. Luckily, it only lasts a few seconds, but we remain in stop-and-go traffic between 14 mph and 20 mph. Not good.
5:45 p.m.:
Ian: We’ve entered the Silver Line’s first phase, which opened in 2014, running at 50 mph, according to my speedometer app. We’re neck-and-neck with traffic on the Dulles Toll Road, but cars headed for the airport in the Dulles Access Road seemed to be passing us. The number of passengers in our car is thinning out, and Dulles still seems far away as we leave Tysons. Optimism is starting to ebb.
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Katherine: Things are looking up. The I-66 lull didn’t last long. Now that we’ve reached the free airport access lanes along the Dulles Toll Road, it’s smooth sailing. Off to my left, in the distance, the lighted Capital One buildings are soaring near the Silver Line’s McLean station. The rain is coming down hard, slowing my speed to about 50 mph, even as the road ahead is wide open and the closest taillights are far ahead.
6 p.m.:
Ian: We reach Innovation Center, one stop from the airport, right at 6 p.m. It felt like it took forever to reach Reston Town Center, the first station in the new segment of the Silver Line. A 7-year-old girl who’s riding out to the end of the line in Ashburn with her family estimates it will take 25,000 hours to get there.
Katherine: We pull up to the airport parking garage at 5:59 p.m., and there’s room! We find a spot pretty quickly but have trouble finding the terminal entrance, forcing us to walk up a couple of ramps.
6:04 p.m.:
Ian: We’re off the train. The station smells new! We head the wrong way down the platform, losing some time as we take the stairs down. We tap out, paying our $6 fares, and start walking to the terminal. No sign of Team Driving. I know there have been questions about the length of the walk from the Metro station to the terminal, but we do it in about four minutes, with help from moving walkways — more quickly than the seven minutes Metro’s Trip Planner showed.
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We head up one last escalator.
6:08 p.m.:
Katherine: As we head down the terminal walkway from the garage — this feels like a long walk for the elderly or anyone with a disability — we pass the bright new Metro station entrance. No Ian or Astrid.
6:12 p.m.:
Ian: We’ve arrived at the airline check-in counter. No sign of them. I’m stunned. Team Train has won! But not by much.
6:13 p.m.:
Katherine: We head up the final escalator, and there they are.
Conclusion:
The train definitely feels like a viable way to get to Dulles. It’s competitive on time and far cheaper than paying for parking or an Uber. However, the margin of victory was so slim that it could easily have gone the other way with a longer wait for the train or any minor holdup along the way.
The drive had blissfully little traffic for an evening rush hour and no collisions or other incidents, so we got lucky there. Even so, the trip could have been even faster with higher speeds on dry roads or in daylight.
Final tallies:
Total time:
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Silver Line: 1 hour, 12 minutes
Driving: 1 hour, 13 minutes
Uber: Presumably about 55 minutes to arrive at the terminal entrance, without the walk time to or from garages on both ends
Total cost:
Silver Line: $6 (or $12 for a round-trip)
Driving: $74.50 for gas and parking, assuming a three-day stay in the airport parking garage, including a $13.50 toll for the I-66 Express Lanes
Uber: $118.90
Stress (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being an emotional meltdown):
Silver Line: 2. Being familiar with Metro, Ian mostly knew where to go and what to expect, and his fare card was loaded and ready to go. Unlike on some days, the train came relatively quickly, and Metro ran smoothly. Once on the train, it was just a matter of sitting back. Finding his way to the terminal was simple.
Driving: 5. While traffic mostly moved, Katherine didn’t know whether the occasional slowdown would last a couple of minutes or result in the kind of D.C.-area traffic catastrophe that can lead to a missed flight. And driving in a dark rain, especially through several tight construction zones, wasn’t fun.
Uber: Presumably about the same as driving, but with the better chance of a nap.
Note: This story was updated to reflect a $13.50 toll paid to use the I-66 Express Lanes.
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