Washington Nationals fans wave their towels at the start of the NLDS game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Oct. 7, 2016. Fans attending must-win Game 5 on Thursday better watch the clock if they’re taking Metro. The system will shut down at midnight. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Thursday night, as more than 42,000 Nats fans spill into the Navy Yard neighborhood at the end of a pivotal playoff Game 5, they likely won’t have Metro as an option to whisk them home.
Metro has refused pleas to stay open past midnight for the game, set to start at 8:08 p.m. The system is adhering to a moratorium on special-event service during SafeTrack, the massive rebuilding and repair program the transit agency launched in June. Already, Metro has rebuffed pleas from the District, the Marine Corps Marathon, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and various other event sponsors asking for exceptions to its new service schedule.
But the decision to close at midnight on the night of a prime-time Major League Baseball playoff game in the nation’s capital has drawn the ire of elected officials and frustration from players and fans, who say the capacity crowd will need transit from the game, lest Metro’s woes trigger an embarrassing mass exodus around the seventh-inning stretch.
Those critics include the head of the transit agency’s board of directors.
“Metro should stay open. It’s an epic game, probably one of the most epic sports games that we’ve had in years, really,” said board Chairman Jack Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member. “I mean, there’s always this view that if you make an exception for one, you have to make it for everybody, but you don’t. You have to do it on a case-by-case basis. You do it, and that’s it.”
[Metro’s SafeTrack program prompts Marine Corps Marathon changes]
Metro’s argument: It has already said no to such events as the Marine Corps Marathon, which drew upward of 100,000 people. The Nats game, while regionally significant, is comparably a much smaller event.
“Not sure how one says no to tens of thousands of Susan G. Komen participants and Marines but yes to baseball fans — to say nothing of regular riders, who have not gotten any ‘exceptions’ from the hardships of SafeTrack,” Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said in a statement. “As I write, trains are single tracking in two different areas of the Red Line due to maintenance issues. Clearly, the system is not yet back to a state of good repair and that must be everyone’s singular focus.”
Already Wednesday, fans were devising transit alternatives, the District was planning supplemental bus service and Uber was plotting how it would handle the boost in business.
Pressed about how Nats fans were supposed to get home Thursday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) didn’t respond directly.
[Metro rebuffs D.C. Mayor Bowser’s request for SafeTrack changes]
“I believe strongly that the [Metro] board and the GM [general manager] need a process by which special events can be exempted,” Bowser said at a news conference. “A one-size-fits-all, blanket prohibition . . . is wrongheaded.”
Asked again in a gaggle later, Bowser, who is a former Metro board member, said: “Nats fans are amazingly persistent and creative, and we know that they’re going to plan ahead.”
The final trains to depart Navy Yard station, which serves the ballpark, will leave at 11:39 p.m. toward Greenbelt, to the north, and 12:17 a.m. toward Branch Avenue, to the south. Stessel said the 11:39 train would allow for connections to any line.
What is abundantly clear, however, is that Metro’s already-limited service at that hour, combined with the early closing, will not be sufficient for the estimated 12,000 to 15,000 fans who might be expected to use Metro to get home. During the 2012 MLB playoffs, each game attracted about 12,000 riders to Metro — even a Game 5, which ended after midnight, according to PlanItMetro, the transit agency’s planning blog.
That game began at 8:37 p.m.
“We recognize that this might take Metro out of consideration for Nats fans tomorrow night,” Stessel said.
Wednesday morning, as the news was still settling in, Nats fans set up a grass-roots system using the hashtag #NatsRide to match carpoolers with drivers, in exchange for parking or, in one case, someone to stand in line at a ballpark concession stand. The D.C. Circulator boosted bus service in the Navy Yard area, planning to keep a route from Navy Yard to Union Station in service until 1 a.m.
[Heads up, fans: Nationals-Dodgers Game 5 will probably end after Metro closes]
And Uber made plans to ensure it would have enough drivers in place. The ride-hailing company will email riders in advance to suggest pickup locations in hopes of averting commute chaos.
“Uber expects to see significant increases in demand around Navy Yard following the game,” a company spokesman said in a statement. “To ensure we can meet that demand, we will be communicating with our driver-partners about the increased activity around that area as well as putting in place some driver incentives during peak hours.”
Meanwhile, some fans were busy on #NatsRide, organized by the TalkNats blog.
David Gaines, 54, of Rockville, agreed to take two fans in Columbia Heights to and from the game in exchange for parking.
He didn’t expect the game to let out in time for fans to make Metro. “The only way that’s gonna happen is if Max [Scherzer] throws a perfecto,” he said, referring to a perfect game, “which would be double win-win, obviously.”
Christy Delooze, 29, of Herndon, works near the ballpark and agreed to give rides to fans who need them after the game. All she asked in exchange: someone to stand in line for her at Shake Shack at the ballpark — a wait that can be a multi-inning affair.
As for why she and other fans were making a push help one another? “I’m just trying to share in my good fortune,” Delooze said. “I wanna make sure that we still have the stands full in the ninth.”
Robert McCartney contributed to this report.