The Georgetown Metropolitan

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• DPW has announced that trash pick up will slide until Saturday and no recycling will be picked up at all this week. This is frustrating since this wasn’t exactly a 100 year snow storm, but just hold on to your recycling for another week.
• George’s gets high marks.

The popular Japanese ramen spot, Oki Bowl, is in the progress of moving up the block. They have occupied 1608 Wisconsin Ave. since 2018, taking over the space formerly occupied by Basil Thai. In taking over the spot, Oki Bowl transformed what was previously a fairly nondescript dining room into an Instagram-magnet, with walls and ceilings covered with colorful knickknacks. Food and budgetwise, the restaurant also was a magnet for those looking for relatively affordable and tasty Japanese ramen.

Oki Bowl is moving up to 1614 Wisconsin Ave. This spot hosted another popular cheap-ish dining spot: Jaco Taco. Sadly the taco/juice bar closed last year. It’s unclear to me exactly how Oki Bowl will take over the space. The square footage is much less than Oki Bowl’s old spot. Perhaps they will occupy the upstairs or the adjoining retail space, which has been an illegal pot shop for a while.

The initial announcement (above) announced that they would remain open at their old location until January 26th, but a subsequent announcement stated that they were getting kicked out by January 1. It still looks like they won’t reopen until February, so you’ll have to wait a bit for your ramen fix.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown’s priciest home finds a buyer.
• Hyde-Addison principal named principal of the year.

As DC digs out from what (at time of writing) is supposed to be a giant storm, I thought it would be a good time to revisit one of the largest in recent memory: the infamous blizzards of 2010 (known locally as Snowmageddon, SnOMG, etc.). Here are some of the scenes I captured:

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Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The snow has been falling for hours by now, so please stay safe! If you are one of my constituents and need help with snow clearance, let me know and I will try to arrange someone to help!
• Due to the snow, tonights ANC meeting will be fully virtual. Link in the agenda!
• Otherwise, enjoy the snow!

Happy new year and welcome to your January 2025 Northwest Georgetown ANC update!

I wanted to take this month’s update as an opportunity to discuss some big changes that have come and will soon come to the transit network for Georgetown. By the end of the year, the bus network through Georgetown will be radically different from how it was just a few months ago.

The first big change is one that took effect just this week: the end of the popular Circulator bus service. This service began in 2005 as a way to provide a quick and simple way for people to get around downtown DC without needing to overcome the steep learning curve that comes with most urban bus systems. They accomplished this by setting the fee at a nice round $1 and establishing a clear easy-to-understand map, with just a handful of routes. The most popular was the one that became the last one standing: the Georgetown to Union Station route. The target market was tourists, of course, but Georgetowners quickly learned to take advantage of the route as well. It replaced the “Blue Bus” system that the BID had previously established, so there was already a local demand for the service.

I was particularly grateful for the Circulator when my daughter was a baby because it was the only bus service that allowed you to bring on a baby stroller without collapsing it. Since our pediatrician was just over in Foggy Bottom, we spent a lot of time ferrying back and forth on the Circulator during those first couple years. Here’s my daughter on her very first bus ride in fact:

There were certainly mistakes made with the Circulator over the years. Politics on the Council led to the creation of multiple routes that lacked the justification that the first routes did. These routes became extremely expensive to maintain, as measured by the cost-per-rider. The economics of the system was further tested by the stretches when the service was just plain free. As the era of budget tightening took hold over the last couple years, the system was harder and harder to justify. Even two of the founders of the system, Joe Sternlieb and Dan Tangherlini, recognized that it’s time had passed.

(I would still like to point out that at the same time the Mayor and Council were concluding that the Circulator was not longer justifiable given the budget restraints, they gave a billionaire another half a billion dollars for a sports arena. The requirement to tighten belts is not a uniformly applied mandate, clearly.)

The Post wrote a nice article about the very last run of the Circulator, which took place just hours before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.

So for better or worse, the Circulator is dead.

So let’s talk about Metrobus.

The first thing to note is that the city worked with WMATA to modify some routes to somewhat recreate the Georgetown-Union Station Circulator bus. They did that by merging the 31 and 33 routes and extending them all the way to Union Station. That’s helpful, no doubt, but the problem is that it doesn’t really address the biggest impact that the elimination of the Circulator will have on Georgetown: bus frequency.

The reality for most Georgetowners, I suspect, is that they view the Circulator and the 30 series largely interchangeable. At least, I know I did. Between Georgetown and downtown, they both got you roughly to the same place. So you had more frequent buses to choose from. While the modified 30 series will now get you all the way to Union Station in a way they didn’t used to, they will come no more frequently. So you will inevitably have to wait longer for a bus and the buses that do come will likely be more crowded. That is just the sad reality of a world without the Circulator. (And again, something to remember when visions of NFL stadiums start dancing in our elected officials heads…)

But those changes will pale in comparison to the much more significant changes on tap for every single Metrobus route in the system.

In short: every single Metrobus route is going to be changed and renamed by the end of this year.

Last year I wrote a deep dive into all the proposed changes. And I recommend you read those two links if you are a regular bus rider. But I’ll try to sum up the changes here:

• The D2 will now be the D96 and will extend all the way between Bethesda and Foggy Bottom
• The D6 will now be the D94 and will only go as far as Chinatown, not Union Station
• The G2 will now be the D92 and it will travel down Q St. east of 35th St. It will now go to Union Station not Le Droit Park
• The 30 series will now be the D82 and will only reach McPherson Square, not Union Station as the Circulator-replacement route does
• The 38B will become the A58 and instead of ending at Balston it will go all the way to Seven Corners
• There will be a new route called C85 that will go down M St. out to the Palisades. It will then double back to Burleith and up through Ward 3.

As with all big changes to bus routes, there will be “winners” and “losers”. For instance, if you live in the middle of the east village and like catching the G2, you might now face a longer walk to and from the bus stop. But there will be a lot more bus options to get up to neighborhoods north and west of Georgetown.

But above all else, the changes will mean learning completely new names and routes, which will be a challenge to even the most seasoned bus riders. WMATA has not given a clear schedule for when the changes will take place, but has stated that they will begin this summer. I suspect the changes will be rolled out over time, so stay tuned!

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Happy New Year Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Osteria Mozza is a “smash hit“.
• Cookie tour is also a smash hit. Smash hits all around!

I’m signing off for the year! Have a happy holiday and see you in 2025!

This week the Georgetown Metropolitan turns 16! Way back on December 13, 2008 I started this website. At the time there were dozens of neighborhood blogs around and I thought Georgetown should have one too. My first goal with the site was to push back on the stereotypes about Georgetowners and document how we’re all (well most of us) pretty normal people living normal lives with the same sorts of ups and downs that are common across the city. I hope I’ve succeeded on that front. (I mean if I haven’t succeeded after sixteen years, then I’ve not much hope getting it right moving forward!)

I’m not going to lie. Sometimes it’s a chore to keep this going. But then I’ll get hit with inspiration and do things like write a 3,000 word essay tying the fight over a bagel shop to a century-plus story of commerce and zoning. It’s days like that that I’m so grateful to have this platform. And so as this site heads off to driver’s ed, I still look forward to years more of publishing this little hobby of mine.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• More on the Wawa closure.
• JFK and Jackie’s first home together if for sale again.