By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 31, 2008
At the west end of Metro's Navy Yard stop yesterday, the main portals to the glory of the new Nationals ballpark, there were repairmen for the escalators, repairmen for the Farecard machines, repairmen for the elevator and a special bag for blood-borne pathogens.
"In case somebody falls," a Metro spokeswoman said.
Outside, to greet Metro riders to the Nationals' opening-night game, there was a four-piece Dixieland band, a barbershop quartet and a war protester named Liz Hourician wearing a giant papier-mache head of President Bush.
"Five layers!" of papier-mache, she called from inside the head.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer appeared in the crowd, then vanished, to fans' cries of "Wolf! Wolf!"
All in all, there was plenty of entertainment, Washington-style, lots of preparation and a minimum of trouble for most fans heading to the team's inaugural game yesterday at the gleaming new cathedral of baseball on South Capitol Street. The repair people were hardly needed.
Most things went well yesterday, as well as for the team's exhibition game Saturday, apparently because many people departed for the game early. Metro also went to great lengths to smooth the trip with extra cars and dozens of guides and announcements in the stations.
In addition, some fans said they scouted their Metro and driving routes days in advance to make sure they knew where they were going.
The journey home last night started uneventfully, with hundreds of departures before the game ended by those with young children, people who had to work today or people worried about overcrowding at game's end.
Thousands of diehards who stayed to the thrilling end jammed the Navy Yard Station and the departing trains, forcing officials to briefly halt access to the station. But the crowd thinned after about a half-hour, and few other problems were reported.
"It was wonderful," North Potomac lawyer Jeff Van Grack, 54, said on his way home last night with son Alan, 25. "It was all that it was geared up to be. . . . It was nothing but a good experience all along."
As arriving fans emerged from the Metro station yesterday and gazed upon the new stadium for the first time, many paused to take photographs. A few gasped.
"There it is," one man said.
"Awesome," said another.
Stadium-bound fans, some of whom left before 3 p.m. for the game at 8, reported little trouble on Metro. Trains were crowded toward game time but arrived at stations frequently, riders reported.
"Absolutely perfect," said Hans Landefeld, 37, of Arlington County. The Navy lieutenant commander rode in from the Pentagon with his son, Porter, 6. Their trip home was the same, he said. They left at the start of the ninth inning, when Porter fell asleep. "It was absolutely amazing," he said. "We had no problems: left the ballfield, went right to the Metro, got right on."
"Piece of cake," said Joe Mattos, 54, of Laurel said of his ride in. "The actual train trip was about 35 minutes."
Randall Moody, 64, a lobbyist from American University Park, rode in from Tenleytown. "It was fine," he said. "It was crowded, but not overwhelmingly." Moody and his wife, Jane, left early but mainly because of the chilly weather.
Metro, which carried 17,000 passengers to the new ballpark for Saturday's exhibition game, was expecting 24,000 people to ride its trains to last night's opener. The transit agency put 15 extra cars on the Green Line, four more on the Orange and Red lines and stayed open an hour past the normal Sunday closing time of midnight.
Spokeswoman Cathy Asato said Metro officials can immediately reassess transit plans for coming games, especially the first weekday game, April 7.
Motorists and pedestrians generally reported smooth trips last night, as well, because most heeded the Nationals' advice to arrive early. Gates opened at 3:30 p.m. There was some freeway trouble after the game, police reported, when an accident closed Interstate 295 for about an hour in both directions near Blue Plains sewage plant in Southwest.
At Parking Lot Y, south of M Street SE, which has about 200 spaces, the mayor of Fairfax City said his trip in was surprisingly quick.
"It was so easy, it was unbelievable. We didn't see a car," Robert F. Lederer, 52, said at 6:30 p.m. "We left Fairfax City 35 minutes ago."
Many fans said they arrived early because they knew President Bush would be there, which would mean waits to get through metal detectors.
Despite fears about heavy traffic, such thoroughfares as South Capitol Street and M Street SE were not heavily backed up at 6 p.m.
Karyn LeBlanc of the D.C. Department of Transportation said the city had made only minor tweaks to its traffic plan after Saturday's game.
Dave Lanham, 45, of Prince Frederick in Calvert County took advantage of a free shuttle bus from RFK Stadium, the team's home for the past three seasons.
Walking from the bus stop to the stadium, Lanham and his father, Dick, stopped to marvel at the transformation of the Southeast neighborhood, including a stadium parking lot instead of a liquor store at First and M streets SE.
"It's like a different city," said Dick Lanham, 67.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.