The Metrorail (subway) system and the Metrobus (bus) network are owned and operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) — a multijurisdictional, quasi-governmental agency. WMATA also operates a paratransit service for the disabled called MetroAccess. However, the expression "Metro" usually refers to Metrorail exclusively.

Unlike the subway systems in cities such as Boston or New York, Metrorail fare is not fixed, but instead varies based on the distance traveled and the time of day. Riders enter and exit the system using a stored-value card in the form of a paper magnetic stripe farecard or a proximity card known as SmarTrip. Both methods track the balance paid to Metro, as well as the rider's entry and exit points.

Since opening in 1976, the subway network has grown to five lines, consisting of 86 stations and 106.3 miles (171 km) of track. The original plan of 83 stations on 103 miles (165.5 km) was completed on January 13, 2001. There were 206 million trips on Metrorail in fiscal year 2006.•
The system is the second busiest in the nation, with about 700,000 trips taken on a typical weekday.•
The only city in the nation with a busier subway system is New York.

Washington's Metrorail is well known for its design by Chicago architect Harry Weese. Weese's design is an exemplar of late-20th-century modern architecture. With its heavy use of concrete, and the repetitive nature of its design motifs, it demonstrates aspects of Brutalism, which, in Washington, is also exemplified by the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building. Simultaneously, with its coffered groin and barrel vaults, it reflects the neoclassical style of architecture that can arguably be described as the closest thing to an "official" federal style in Washington, as demonstrated in such buildings as the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the former U.S. Patent Office building (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum), by Robert Mills; the White House, by James Hoban; and the Beaux-Arts Lincoln Memorial, by Henry Bacon.

The network was designed with a spoke-hub distribution paradigm, which makes the subway ideal for getting from a suburb to any part of the city, or vice versa, but unattractive for suburb-to-suburb travel; groups have proposed a Purple Line to remedy this. The system is also noteworthy as a system with a limited number of lines that nevertheless makes extensive use of interlining (running more than one line on the same track).


There are five operating lines and one planned line:



There are currently stations in the District of Columbia, Prince George's County and Montgomery County in Maryland, and Fairfax County, Arlington County, and city of Alexandria in Virginia. The planned line would add stations in Loudoun County, Virginia once completed.

Half of the system, including most of the stations in the District of Columbia, is underground, but most suburban stations are on elevated rails or at grade. In the case of the western Orange Line, the tracks run in the median of Interstate 66. However, the deepest stations in the system are not in Washington, but at the northeastern end of the Red Line, with Wheaton having the longest escalator in the western hemisphere at 70 meters long, and Forest Glen being even deeper than that. It is so deep, the only way to the surface is by elevator.Pipeshaft - Forest Glen


The system is not centered on any single station, but Metro Center is considered the hub, as it is the busiest station, located at the intersection of the three busiest lines, and the Metro Information Center and Gift Shop are located there. Other notable transfer stations include Gallery Place/Chinatown, which is located by the Verizon Center; Stadium-Armory, which is located by RFK Stadium where the Washington Nationals and DC United play; and L'Enfant Plaza, the only station in the system with four lines and which supplies easy access between downtown Washington and Virginia.

Numerous colleges and universities are accessible through the Metro, including:

American University from Tenleytown-AU

Catholic University from Brookland-CUA

The University of the District of Columbia from Van Ness-UDC

Gallaudet University from New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U

Georgetown University from Rosslyn (via shuttle bus or a long walk across the Key Bridge) or Dupont Circle

Georgetown University Law Center from Judiciary Square and Union Station

The George Washington University from Foggy Bottom-GWU

George Mason University from Vienna/Fairfax-GMU (Main Campus) and Virginia Square-GMU (Arlington Campus)

Howard University from Shaw-Howard Univ

Howard University Law School from Van Ness-UDC

The University of Maryland, College Park from College Park-U of Md

Marymount University from Ballston-MU

Trinity University from Brookland-CUA

During the 1960s, there were plans for a massive freeway system in Washington. However, opposition to this freeway system grew and the funds to construct it were reallocated toward construction of the Metro system.

In 1960, the federal government created the National Capital Transportation Agency to develop a rapid rail system. Then in 1966, a bill creating WMATA was passed by the federal government, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland,
with planning power for the system being tranferred to it from the NCTA.
WMATA approved plans for a 98-mile regional system in 1968, and construction on the metro began in 1969, with groundbreaking on December 9. The system opened March 27, 1976 with 4.6 miles (7.4 km) available on the Red Line with five stations from Rhode Island Ave to Farragut North, all in the District of Columbia. Arlington, Virginia was linked to the system on July 1, 1976; Montgomery County, Maryland on February 6, 1978; Prince George's County, Maryland on November 20, 1978; and Fairfax County, Virginia and Alexandria, Virginia on December 17, 1983.WMATA History (PDF)

The final 103 mile (166 km), 83 station system was completed with the opening of the Green Line segment to Branch Ave on January 13, 2001. This did not mean the end of the growth of the system, however: a 3.22 mile (5.18 km) extension of the Blue Line to Largo Town Center and Morgan Boulevard stations opened on December 18, 2004, the first in-fill station (New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U on the Red Line between Union Station and Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood) opened November 20, 2004, and planning is underway for an extension to Dulles Airport.

The highest ridership for a day was June 9, 2004, with 850,636 trips, as thousands of people went to Washington to view the funeral procession of Ronald Reagan, and to the U.S. Capitol to view his body as it lay in state. The previous recordholding day was January 20, 1993, President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. March, April, June and July of 2006 have broken records in terms of ridership, with seven of the ten highest ridership days occurring in these months.

June 2006 holds the single-month ridership record with 18,745,046 total riders, and the record for highest average weekday ridership with 747,329 weekday trips.
USA Today attributes the high ridership of the Washington Metro and other transit systems around the country to rapidly rising gasoline costs during that time.

Metro's rail fleet consists of 952 75-foot (23 m) rail cars, delivered in five shipments.

The original order of 300 rail cars was manufactured by Rohr Industries, with delivery in 1976. These cars are numbered 1000-1299, and were rehabilitated in the mid-1990's by Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie and Metro at the Brentwood Shop in Washington. The second order, of 76 cars, was through Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie (Breda), with delivery in 1982. These cars are numbered 2000-2075, and were rehabilitated in 2003 and 2004 by Alstom in Hornell, New York. The third order consisted of 290 cars, also from Breda, with delivery in 1987. These cars are numbered 3000-3289 as originally delivered, and are currently undergoing rehabilitation by Alstom in Hornell, New York. The fourth order consisted of 100 cars from Breda, numbered 4000-4099. These cars were delivered in 1991. The fifth order consisted of 192 rail cars from a joint venture of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) of Spain and AAI Corporation of Hunt Valley, Maryland. These cars are numbered 5000-5191, with delivery from 2001 through 2004. Most recently, Metro has ordered 184 rail cars from Alstom, the same company that is rehabilitating the Breda cars. Delivery began in late 2005, with initial service starting in October 2006. The new cars have their body shells built in Barcelona, Spain and assembly completed in Hornell, New York.

Metro planners designed the system with customer safety and order maintenance as primary considerations. The open vaulted ceiling design of Metro stations and the limited obstructions on platforms allow few opportunities to conceal criminal activity. Station platforms are also built away from station walls, to limit vandalism and provide for diffused lighting of the station from recessed lights. Metro's attempts to reduce crime, combined with how the station environments were designed with crime prevention in mind,• Station managers could make exceptions for customers with small children, the elderly, or the disabled. • Today, Metro allows the use of restrooms by customers who gain a station manager's permission, except during periods of heightened terror alerts. •

There have been three collisions reported on the Metrorail system since its opening.

On January 13, 1982, a train backed up and derailed at a malfunctioning interlocking between the Federal Triangle and Smithsonian stations. In attempting to restore the train to the rails, the supervisors backed it up, but they did not notice that another car had also derailed. In attempting to reverse the train, the other rail car slid off the track and slammed into a tunnel support, killing three people and injuring many others, becoming the worst accident that has ever occurred on the Metrorail system in over 30 years of operation. Coincidentally, this accident occurred at the same time as Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge during a major snowstorm, producing probably the worst transit situation in Washington history. The train accident was compounded by lack of availability of ambulances, which at the time were all trying to reach the 14th Street Bridge disaster.

On January 6, 1996, during the Blizzard of 1996, a train operator was killed when a train overran the Shady Grove station and crashed into a parked train. An NTSB investigation found the following factors that contributed to the accident:

at the time of the accident, there was a policy then in effect that prohibited supervisors from granting employees permission to operate trains manually (even in inclement weather), and

the parked train was located on the same track that was being used by inbound trains, instead of in a safer location. Report of the 1996 crash from the NTSB

On November 3, 2004, an out-of-service train lost its brakes, rolled backwards into the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Station, and hit a revenue train servicing the station. No one was killed, but 20 people were injured. The 2004 accident reinforced the finding from the 1996 accident of the tendency of Metro rail cars built or rehabilitated prior to 2001 to telescope when involved in a head-on collision. A 14-month investigation on the accident concluded that the train operator was most likely less-than-fully alert as the train rolled backwards into the station, on the grounds that the train had rolled backwards for over 78 seconds and that the train operator was at the end of an overtime shift that had been preceded by a night of interrupted sleep. Safety officials estimated that had the train been full, at least 79 would have died. Since the findings of the investigation, the train operator was dismissed from Metro, and Metro officials plan to add rollback protection to 300 cars.