The DC Metro subway system is said to be the second busiest in the United States, that only New York City has more rider traffic. Built with the idea of conquering a number of projects held dear by various DC area groups, the metro was originally intended to revitalize inner DC neighborhoods; allow the Federal Government to transport its army of employees into and then back out to the suburbs efficiently; make an end-run around the tangle of highways that are supposed to enable easy car travel around DC (but has instead created strangulation: no design can overcome the sheer weight of numbers the DC area has to handle).

The costs of the system multiplied crazily in the 1970s, and the Feds had to step in with emergency money to keep the system viable. Since then it has continued to increase it's size, length, ridership and (too) frequently, its fee structure. It is still cheaper than gas and parking in almost all instances; if you're coming from a place near a metro stop and then going to another spot near a metro, its easier than finding a parking place, to say the least. The bus lines at street level extend the coverage substantially.

But its not a perfect system, and while you can travel a longer distance (say) Addison Road, Maryland to Springfield, VA by riding the Metro, its still going to be quicker, cheaper and easier by car,* though you cannot sit (or stand) still and read a book in an auto (or obviously, you should not) but you can on the subway.

In my experience, traveling south through the Metro system to a place like the Potomac Avenue station in Maryland below Washington DC, the train would have noticeably more person-to-person conversation. Going north into Maryland above DC, where the suburbs of Bethesda, Rockville, Gaithersburg, etc., are, it would be stone quiet, with precious little actual interaction between the huddled group of strangers eqiupped with headphones, books, newspapers and blank stares.

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*Unless you get pulled into one of those mammoth car-jams that happen in the Springfield VA vortex that mixes DC traffic and East Coast traffic in general - - If you're going to North Carolina, South Carolina or Florida from anywhere north of DC, you have to make a trip through this gauntlet - - and much of that lower-west Virginia suburbia traffic doesn't help a bit: Manassas, Centreville, Dale City, right on down to Fredericksburg and even Richmond, VA. Route 95 north and south is one long potential traffic jam.