OP here - I'm happy to see that our experience doesn't seem to be the norm.

We took the silver line to the red line. Silver line (especially East Falls Church) was the one with the issues for us. We were on it around 8am on Sunday morning.

I think the PPs are right about public transportation being a good life skill. We will try again.

Anonymous wrote:We went to the zoo last weekend and took the metro in. Admittedly, I haven't been on the metro in the past 5 years (before I had kids). I was shocked at how many people on the metro seem like they are half out of their minds. Screaming to themselves, smelling like feces, clearly on something, etc. I felt so uncomfortable having my kids near them and I regretted not just buying a zoo parking pass.

Maybe the metro has always been like this, but I never noticed before I had kids. Do you guys skip the metro if you have young kids?

No, Metro hasn't always been like this, but this is what happens when you decide to no longer enforce fare evasion in the name of "equity."

Anonymous wrote:NYC subway, yes, I've seen what OP described on a semi regular basis. But on the metro? No. My kids love riding the metro.

+1. We lived in NYC pre-kids and this is pretty common. I got used to just moving cars to get away from the crazy. I almost never see this in DC. And as a general matter NYC is a safer city, but the subway is wild compared to the metro.

We take it sometimes with our toddler and he loves it. We have had zero issues. We scan the car before we get in to make sure there’s no funny business, and we will move cars if need be, but it hasn’t been an issue. Our toddler is very friendly and often ends up making “friends” on the train lol.

Yes I feel safe. We also take our kids downtown to DC and to other cities like Baltimore, Philly and NYC enough that they have seen homeless people and people who may be on drugs or have mental health issues. It’s something we talk about so that they are not afraid but also don’t make rude comments.

There are a lot of things you will have to deal with as your kids get older, but sheltering them forever is not conducive to preparing them to be independent and street smart as teens once they want to go into DC with friends.

We don’t do it frequently but when we do it’s during the day. I haven’t noticed what you did. It feels safe. We live in the burbs but I want her to feel confident using the metro alone by around 12/13 with a friend.

Anonymous wrote:We went to the zoo last weekend and took the metro in. Admittedly, I haven't been on the metro in the past 5 years (before I had kids). I was shocked at how many people on the metro seem like they are half out of their minds. Screaming to themselves, smelling like feces, clearly on something, etc. I felt so uncomfortable having my kids near them and I regretted not just buying a zoo parking pass.

Maybe the metro has always been like this, but I never noticed before I had kids. Do you guys skip the metro if you have young kids?

How many people like that did you see? Was it different near certain stops?

NYC subway, yes, I've seen what OP described on a semi regular basis. But on the metro? No. My kids love riding the metro.

Yes, we feel safe. I have not encountered what you describe and if I did, I'd probably get off and change cars. Are you sure it wasn't just one or a pair of troubled people causing the issue? That can happen anywhere. Yesterday I was leaving Whole Foods and this large group of men (who were standing around smoking and drinking in the middle of the afternoon even though they were all in their 20s-40s) were behaving absolutely horribly and one of them leaned in close to me as I passed and just laughed. It was very disturbing.

I have thankfully not experience that on the metro.

I grew up riding public trans and have tried my best to instill that in my kid so far. I think it's an important life to skill to learn to navigate, be vigilant, etc. Makes it super easy when we travel and kids are use to it.

My teen takes metro home from school and does not see this. Maybe you got unlucky?

Anonymous wrote:I take my kid on the Metro regularly and have not had this experience.

+1. I've been riding for 20 years (and with kids for 10) and have never had this experience. Sure, an oddball weirdo once in a while, but that's few and far between. Metro is usually perfectly safe.

I take my kid on the Metro regularly and have not had this experience.

No my kids love taking the train! The red line feels super safe to me.

We went to the zoo last weekend and took the metro in. Admittedly, I haven't been on the metro in the past 5 years (before I had kids). I was shocked at how many people on the metro seem like they are half out of their minds. Screaming to themselves, smelling like feces, clearly on something, etc. I felt so uncomfortable having my kids near them and I regretted not just buying a zoo parking pass.

Maybe the metro has always been like this, but I never noticed before I had kids. Do you guys skip the metro if you have young kids?