Metro's Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams on Our (Literally) Silver Line

Reston turned into an exclusive gated community of high rollers so gradually we didn't even notice! Along with our fancypants "premium parking" and the champagne prices of our highly exclusive Toll Road (import cars only please, and preferably European ones), turns out we're also paying caviar rates to ride the Metro.

Our BFFs at Reston 2020 were fiddling around with a fancy interactive graphic on Metro's "web site" and discovered that Wiehle Avenue Metro station users pay the highest fares in the entire system. Give us some gold-plated blockquote, BFFs at Reston 2020:

The people who use our first Reston Metrorail station pay the highest average fares of any users on the Metrorail system no matter the time of day. 

• On an all day average, the 8,137 users of the Wiehle station pay $4.34 per entry, the highest anywhere on the Metrorail system.  The second highest average fare goes to the Vienna station at $4.08 per passenger.  In fact, those are the ONLY two stations--both in Fairfax County--that average more than $4.00 per entry in the entire Metrorail system.

• During the morning peak period, the average 5,079 Wiehle station users pay $5.36 per user, the only users on the Metrorail system who pay more than $5.00 during the AM peak period.

• During mid-day, Wiehle station users again pay the highest fares in the system at an average of $3.38 per user, just two cents ahead of their Vienna station counterparts.

• During the afternoon peak period, Metrorail users entering the Wiehle station again pay the highest fare at a $5.18, the only average fare system-wide that exceeds $5.00.

• And, finally, in the slack evening period, Wiehle station entrants again pay the highest average fares in Metrorail at $3.44, slightly ahead of their Vienna counterparts at $3.33 per person average.

OUTRAGE. Vienners, we're coming for our 11 cents. At those prices, we should at least be given first-class seating, all the better to separate us from the rabble Falls Churchers.

Of course, this is the result of Metro's decision to charge by distance, unlike real other subway systems where you can just cram a lead-filled token into a gum-enfouled slot -- or hop a turnstile if you can't be bothered -- and ride underground all day for one low price, as God and the Sleestaks intended.

We can take consolation in one thing: When our Wegmans-swilling BFFs in particleboard Loudoun finally get their Metro stations, they'll wind up paying even more, the end.