<p>Traveling to DC next week, and will be making much use of the Metro in visiting Gtown, GWU and AU. I was wondering if any of you in the DC area have any suggestions for good Metro apps. I checked the Appstore, thinking I’d find just one or two apps to try, and found tons, but there are no ratings on any of them. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Your best bet for finding how to get around DC by Metro is Metro’s own website:</p>
<p>[Metro</a> - Home page](<a href=“http://www.wmata.com%5DMetro”>http://www.wmata.com)</p>
<p>Use the Trip Planner feature to find out which bus/Metro/walking combo will get you where you need to go fastest.</p>
<p>You also need to know about the DC Circulator bus:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dccirculator.com/DCCirculator.html#home[/url]”>http://www.dccirculator.com/DCCirculator.html#home</a></p>
<p>This is part of the city bus system, but is cheaper than the other buses. It runs about every 10 minutes. The Circulator routes do not come up on the Metro website, so you need to find them at their own website. It is worth doing because the Circulator will get you to Georgetown a lot faster (and much cheaper) from Union Station.</p>
<p>If you are going to be riding the bus/metro around town constantly, consider getting a SmarTrip Card. You won’t be fumbling for change every time you hop on a bus, and you will have automatic discounts for transferring between buses or between the Metro and a bus within a certain period of time.</p>
<p>Have fun while you are here!</p>
<p>From the Circulator website, here’s info on their “Where’s my bus?” feature:</p>
<p>Just go to circulator.dc.gov from any Internet-ready mobile device, select your Circulator route and bus stop, and “Where’s My Bus?” will use real-time GPS data to tell you how close the next few buses are and whether there are any service disruptions you should know about.</p>
<p>Coming Soon
“Where’s My Bus?” for iPhone with advanced features – check back here for updates!</p>
<p>Metro has a phone number that you can call for this information (I’ve seen it at the bus stops), or you can look it up on the website under “Next bus & train arrivals”. Here’s a link to the rail info.</p>
<p>[Metro</a> - Rider Tools - Real Time Arrivals](<a href=“http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/pids/real_time_arrivals.cfm]Metro”>Next Arrivals | WMATA)</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Pizzagirl. </p>
<p>Metro is now on Google Transit. My daughter uses her iPhone to see when the next buses and trains are all the time.</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but I think there’s a Google Maps app for iPhone that has the transit info.</p>
<p>I’ll ask her.</p>
<p>I take it back. It doesn’t look like METRO has put its data in google maps yet.</p>
<p>Go to this site:</p>
<p>[Metro</a> - Rider Tools](<a href=“http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/]Metro”>http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/)</p>
<p>Familiarize yourself with trip planner, next train arrival, and next bus arrival. You can, for example, punch in a bus stop and it will show arrival times for all buses on all routes at that stop based on GPS location.</p>
<p>Then, click Mobile Services to get all that from your phone.</p>
<p>There are maps available (from Metro and Google) that overlay the train stations on a Google street map of DC.</p>
<p>BTW, the Circulator buses are not the same as Metro buses. They are a limited number of routes with buses running in a continuous circle serving popular destinations. For example there’s one that runs east-west connecting Georgetown with Union Station. One that runs north south connecting DuPont, Columbia Heights, and downtown. It’s a great service, but just a tiny subset of the available buses. It appears to be the only service currently shown by google maps.</p>