GM mentioned yesterday that in September the Circulator will take over the remaining Blue bus route between Dupont and Rosslyn. He learned yesterday that that the start date is a tad sooner: next Sunday.
As you can see from the above map, the new Circulator route is identical to the Blue Bus. What will be different are the rates: normal fare will still be a buck, but you won’t get a 50 cent discount for showing a Smartrip. Although, you will get to pay with a Smartrip, which is probably worth 50 cents.
So, that means the last call for the Blue Bus will be sometime around 2 AM Sunday morning. By the next morning, Georgetown’s Circulator service will double.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
I’ll always remember Ginger Laytham when I remember the blue busses. She, more than anyone else, was responsbile for the busses coming to the aide of Georgetown merchants who were so wrongly deprived of the Metro subway. (And it was NOT the fault of the citizens of Georgetown protesting a link to the subway that stopped it from coming here. It was Mayor Barry and his gang determining that it would be too expensive to dig thru the bedrock to build a subway here).
I’ll remember the blue busses for one other thing: on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 I was riding the blue bus from Rosslyn to Georgetown. The bus was at a standstill in morning rush hour traffic in the middle of Key Bridge. The driver of the blue bus had the radio on and was listening to, what I thought, was a nostalgic piece about terrorists trying to blow up the Twin Towers in New York. (A certain Muslim sect tried to blow it up years earlier you’ll remember). But then the radio announcer said something I’ll never forget: “We just learned that an airplane has crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.” I turned to my left and saw a plume of smoke coming from the Pentagon. I then knew the radio broadcast was no nostalgic broadcast. Everyone on the blue bus turned to look and started to scream.
And so we say goodbye to the old rickety blue busses. But there was some history there…..let’s not forget.
Finally!
And Marion Barry wasn’t mayor until 1979. And even if he was, it was WMATA (formed in 1966) that approved the system without a Georgetown stop in 1968. And the Blue Line opened on July 1, 1977 from National Airport to Stadium Armory with no stop (obviously) in Georgetown. The Metro was designed for commuters and there weren’t many people (or I guess enough at that time to justify the costs of digging low, low, low…) commuting to Georgetown.
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that it’s 50 cents if you pay with a SmarTrip card and are transferring from Metrorail at Rosslyn or Dupont Circle.
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It’s no longer 50 cents with a SmarTrip card, but it’s 50 cents with a Metro transfer … which you can only get with a SmarTrip card. Plus, if I recall correctly, the Blue Bus only gave you the 50-cent SmarTrip discount if you were at the Dupont Circle or Rosslyn Metro station when you got on.
And you get more transfer discounts: it works the other way, so if you transfer from Circulator to Metro, you get 50 cents off your Metro fare. Also, you have the two- (or is it three?) hour window for transferring to another Circulator bus for free … and some sort of discount for transferring to Metrobus and other busses.
In other words: Circulator good.