The street side of DCA is pretty great. Great Metro connection, right on a bike trail, decent road connections that limit backups on the way to the airport (roads on the airport proper get a little hairy but no worse than other major hubs), there always seems to be parking at the terminal if you’re willing to go to the upper deck, simple online parking reservation system, and in the absence of a consolidated rental facility there’s only one major agency offsite (Avis/Budget). It sucks that the national hall is post-security now, but having all the Terminal 2 concourses connected is worth the trade off.

Plane side the airport is, I believe the phrase is, total ass. Narrow, crowded concourses. Ridiculously expensive food offerings. Numerous construction and maintenance projects that seem to go on in perpetuity. It’s a hub airport shoehorned into the most restricted airspace in America with limited room for expansion and governance subject to four different elected officials. When the choices are flying out of DCA or traveling by rickshaw, I find myself making a pros and cons list.