Here are the answers to whichWMATA week 163

On Tuesday, we featured the 163rd challenge to see how well you know the Metro system. Here are the answers. How’d you do?

This week, we got 17 guesses. Thirteen of you got all five. Great work!

This week, all the featured stations have the word “center” in their names.

The first image looks down into Mount Vernon Square station. This station’s entrance was rebuilt when the Convention Center was constructed and is designed to handle crowds. The double stair flanked by two escalators on either side is distinctive, as are the escalator shaft walls.

Fourteen of you knew this one.

Largo Town Center is our second station. The Gull II canopy is only used at three stations, and the setting isn’t right for NoMa station. You can also see escalator shafts in the platform leading down to the mezzanine, which means this can’t be Morgan Boulevard, which has a mezzanine above the tracks. The blank concrete wall opposite the station is the wall of the north parking garage (parking light posts can be seen on the top deck).

Thirteen of you got this one right.

The third image shows the entry to Federal Center SW, located in the base of 409 3rd Street SW. The building has actually been recolored since this picture was taken. The brick is now a more neutral gray. But the entry is still distinctive.

Fifteen of you figured this one out.

The fourth image looks through the columns of Columbia Square at the 12th & F entrance to Metro Center. This is one of several station entrances located in the base of a building, but the cladding is somewhat distinctive. The word “Columbia” is also visible, which may have helped.

Fifteen of you guessed correctly.

The final image shows the escalator canopy at Medical Center station, viewed from the sidewalk on Rockville Pike. The NIH campus is visible in the background. The escalator canopy here is a bit bigger than the standard escalator canopy to accommodate the wider distance between escalators. I believe this space is necessary because they’re long escalators.

While many Metro stations are deep and feature long escalators to the surface, most don’t feature canopies. This is because, at some stations, the main escalator leads to a cross passage just below street level . These include Cleveland Park, Van Ness, Tenleytown, and Friendship Heights north; Woodley Park has a knockout panel for an unbuilt pedestrian tunnel just below the street. At several other stations, there’s a surface mezzanine or other feature covering the escalator shaft, including Bethesda, Rosslyn, and Wheaton.

Dupont Circle offers two exceptions. The south entrance has closer escalator spacing due to the narrow landing area on 19th Street. The north entrance doesn’t (yet) have an escalator canopy. That leaves Medical Center as the only logical choice.

Fifteen of you came to the correct conclusion.

Great work, everyone. Thanks for playing! We’ll be back in two weeks with challenge #164.

Information about contest rules and submission guidelines is available at http://ggwash.org/whichwmata.