Today, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority kept me waiting in a Metro station for almost as long as it would have taken to walk to my destination — unacceptable even with the NewYoFla single tracking situation.

Last Friday, hour-long delays due to a broken track forced me to walk to and from work. The day before that, negligence from WMATA employees caused a station to flood.

Add to this the past few weeks of Red Line funk, the post-Redskin game scheduling snafu, the racist station manager, the mysterious train operator abandonment, the constantly broken escalators, and the candy bar and french fry and cellphone arrests.

I pay anywhere from $80 to $100 a month to use WMATA’s trains, and in return I’ve gotten increasingly poor service: a deterioration that gets more palpable day by day.

Well, no more.

Last Friday, WMATA forced me to walk to and from the office. After church today (for which I was late, thanks again to WMATA) I walked home. I think I enjoy the walk. So I’m going to walk to and from work for a while, and start structuring my life so that I rely on the DC Metro as little as possible. Sure, I won’t be able to avoid taking the Metro at times, but I can try to keep as much of my cash away from WMATA as I can, because I know that it only gets exchanged for shoddy, antagonistic service. I’ll be able to save some money, get more exercise, and reduce my stress levels due to riding a train marked “Union Station” which only goes as far as Judiciary Square.

(Update: Hmmm, urban inline skating is also a possibility, now that I’ve found a sports shop downtown which sells accessories to replace my poor skates’ depleted brake pads.)

Update: Things get a bit better.