The Circulator is nearly dead. Long live the Circulator.
A victim of deep budget cuts (that apparently didn’t impact the mayor’s obsession with building a wasteful football stadium) the popular bus program is set to cease by the end of this year. Although popular, the system proved too expensive–at least as measured by cost-per-rider–to keep afloat. An alternative, which was pushed by the ANC and many others, was hinted at at the time the cuts became final: ask WMATA to pick up the difference.
The argument makes decent sense, although it is not without its flaws. Many of the Circulator routes overlapped with WMATA bus routes. For instance, the Georgetown-Union Station route is basically the same as the 30 series between Georgetown and downtown. Of course, the overlap is not perfect. The Circulator goes to Union Station from downtown DC. The 30s series simply ends downtown (these days).
Nonetheless, the city and WMATA put forward a plan this week outlining how the replacement service would roughly work. At this point, the plan is only short term. It’s meant to bridge the gap between the end of the Circulator service and the introduction of the Better Bus Network next year.
The details for the Georgetown Circulator routes are as follow:
-For the Dupont to Rosslyn route, WMATA will increase weekend peak hours for the 38B route to create 15 minute headways.
-For the Georgetown to Union Station route, WMATA will merge the 31 and 33 routes and essentially extend the 30 Series to Union Station
Neither of these solutions is sufficient to substantially replace the Circulator service being lost. For the Dupont to Rosslyn route, the 38B doesn’t get near to Dupont at all. The closest it gets is K and 18th, nearly half a mile from Dupont. (For what it’s worth, it goes right to the Farragut Metro stops, so to the extent the line is looking for a Metrorail connection, it would have one).
And while the modified 30 series route may offer a single seat ride to Union Station, it does not even begin to replace the service frequency that the Circulator provides. For the vast majority of riders catching a bus on Wisconsin Ave., the destination is somewhere that the 30 series already goes. Extending the 30 series to Union Station will only help out a small number of riders. The loss of the Circulator frequency, though, will be felt by all riders. This plan does nothing to address that.
And as it stands, the Better Bus Network that is following this temporary plan is no better in terms of addressing this frequency problem. An analysis of the total bus service before and after the end of Circulator and the introduction of the Better Bus Network showed a huge drop off of overall service for Wisconsin Ave. riders. This is something that the city still needs to address.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
One area where the Circulator and the 30 Series do not overlap is the jog the Circulator takes on K Street. We frequently ride this bus and that portion of the route almost always has a significant number of passengers getting on and off. Since there are many restaurants and doctors’ offices in that area of K Street, the loss of access will create a significant burden, particularly for elder bus riders. One of the 30 Series routes should include that jog.
Pingback: Circulator Death March Begins | The Georgetown Metropolitan