Metro is gearing up for a busy weekend as cherry blossom admirers, sports fans and runners converge on the District.
The Cherry Blossom Festival will be drawing viewers for the peak blooming weekend but also attracting people for a parade and street festival Saturday. Meanwhile, the Washington Wizards basketball team, Washington Nationals baseball team and D.C. United soccer team are slated to play games in the District on Saturday night. A 10-mile road race will flood downtown streets with runners the next day.
“It is a busy weekend,” Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said. “It should not be an issue for us at all.”
The transit agency is gearing up by expanding rail hours, adding standby trains to shuttle the crowds when events end, and running eight-car trains -that can carry more passengers. The agency also canceled major weekend track maintenance that slows service.
Meanwhile, the District Department of Transportation will close some roads downtown Saturday and limit parking. City officials urge people to take Metro.
The transit agency is expecting high ridership, Taubenkibel said. It could mean crowded platforms, exits and entrances. The agency advises riders to buy enough fare for their return trips to keep crowds moving.
But the weekend likely won’t break ridership records set during the inauguration, when the rail system logged an estimated 1.12 million trips. It may not even reach the level of past records, as weekends don’t have the additional crush of weekday commuters trying to get to their jobs.
The Sunday record was set Jan. 18 for the We Are One ceremony of the inauguration weekend with 616,324 entries, while the Saturday record dates from June 8, 1991, when the system ran 786,358 trips as part of a parade for returning troops from the first Gulf War’s Desert Storm.
