According to TBD, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has issued a request for proposals from contractors to install what the request calls “Customer Information Electronic Display Signs” at important Metro stations and along high-usage Metrobus corridors. If all goes according to plan, the first 30 arrival data signs will be in place by the end of June.

While many bus stops won’t see the new technology installed for many months or at all, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Avenues are probable candidates for early installation, which is good news for Hoyas commuting to and from work or internships downtown.

However, installing the signs is only the first step for a transit system that has increasingly become a joke. Real-time data displays for Metrorail are often incorrect, and displaying data doesn’t do anything to address Metro’s frequent rush-hour delays and mechanical breakdowns.

D.C. transportation blogger Kurt Raschke also challenged WMATA to use cheaper, open source options for the signs, instead of relying on an expensive IT firm. Citing the success of New York City’s BusTime, an open-source program that displays real-time info for Staten Island buses, he called for Metro to live up to it’s branding as “America’s Subway” and lead the country in exploiting new technologies

“WMATA should make a commitment to technological excellence, and part of that should include breaking away from the usual routine of squandering riders’ dollars on IT vendors who will, inevitably, overpromise and underdeliver,” Raschke wrote on his blog.

WMATA hopes to eventually install 800 signs in its roughly 2,400 Metrobus shelters in the region. To put these numbers in perspective, Metro services over 12,000 bus stops. High-usage stops with shelters, like those outside the social Safeway on Wisconsin, are likely to eventually receive real-time arrival displays.

In effort to close its daunting $189 million budget gap in 2011, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is exploring a host of fiscal measures that involve raising fares, cutting rail service, and cutting bus service in 2011, including cutting buses to the Georgetown neighborhood (pdf, page 46).

Local blogger Georgetown Metropolitan is reporting that WMATA has proposed cuts which, if enacted, will eliminate eight late night buses that go to and from Dupont on the weekends. The following lines could be affected:

• G2 – The G2 would experience a 33 percent reduction in weekend service. All Westbound service from Howard would end at 11:44 p.m. on Friday night and 11:47 p.m. on Saturday night. Service from Georgetown would stop at 12:18 a.m. on Friday and 12:22 a.m. on Saturday.

  WMATA would also space out all weekend buses by 40 minutes (currently, they run every half hour). On weekdays, it would lengthen the time between buses in morning peak hours from 10 minutes to 11 minutes, and the time between buses from 15 to 18 minutes during evening peak hours.

• D2 — The D2 would stop running after 12:44 a.m. Friday night and after 12:55 a.m. on Saturday night—cutting a total of four buses a night.

• 31 — Cut six westbound and four eastbound buses from the early morning weekday lines, and cut four buses from early weekend morning lines.

GM makes the excellent point that G2 buses are so frustrating to wait for on weekends already that the ten minutes of added headway on their Saturday and Sunday lines could render them almost useless. Between this, and the maddeningly long new routes GUTS buses will be taking under the 2010 Campus Plan, future Georgetown students may find themselves sealed even more tightly in their Georgetown bubble.

GUSA’s intended punishment for the Voice

Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) shot back at the critics of GUSA’s funding board reform at yesterday’s meeting, delivering an eight-minute rebuttal to a recent Voice editorial, which advocated against the reform. In Troiano’s words, he wanted to “set the record straight.” He described the editorial’s claim that reform could “threaten the funding sources for clubs and sports teams” as “unfounded, incendiary remarks, that I believe are flat-out irresponsible for a campus media outlet to state.”

Troiano cited a 2006 referendum that passed with 91 percent of the vote to give GUSA the power to appropriate Student Association funds as evidence that the student population was in support of the reform. He said that “91 percent of students disagree with the editorial board” on the board’s assertion that giving the Senate absolute control over the student activities fee threatens student clubs and student life on campus.

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Adrian Fenty, bus savior

Cheap, reliable transportation fans rejoice: The Wisconsin Avenue portion of the Georgetown—Union Station Circulator route that was slated to be discontinued this Friday has been saved, according to The Washington Post‘s Dr. Gridlock.

According to the Post:

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is scheduled to go to the D.C. Circulator bus stop at Whitehaven Place NW on Tuesday morning to announce that the extension of the route up Wisconsin Avenue will be preserved.

Huzzah!

We reported last week that the Wisconsin Avenue portion of the Circulator route was in peril, and it appears the worst has come to pass: The District Department of Transportation announced that the cut was a done deal.

According to a DDOT press release, widely circulated (and cursed) on local listservs, the new route will take effect Sunday, October 4.  In addition to eliminating service on the stretch of Wisconsin Avenue north of M Street on the Georgetown-Union Station line, the Smithsonian-National Mall Loop is going to be discontinued during the fall and winter months. Service on that route will resume on April 3, 2010.

In the press release, DDOT Director Gabe Klein describes the motivation for the cuts thusly:

We regret having to make any cuts in service.  It was not a decision we took lightly and the reductions were targeted to affect the fewest riders and produce the greatest savings.  At the same time, when we took a closer look at our service, we were able to find some ways – within our budget constraints – to make improvements that will make the Circulator easier to ride for many of our passengers.

In an e-mail to a Georgetown resident who had complained about the cut, DDOT’s Jeff Marootian further elaborated on the rationale behind the move (his full e-mail is included after the jump):

Passenger counts previously conducted along this portion of the Circulator route showed approximately 30 individuals traveling on the Circulator north of M Street on Wisconsin Avenue in both directions between 7am and noon daily. This translates to nearly 70 daily passengers if extrapolated to an all-day count; or about 17,000 passengers on an annual basis.

Given that the Union Station-Georgetown route carries about 2 million passengers annually, cutting the Whitehaven Extension is expected to affect less than 2% of the riders on this route while saving 3 buses or 15% of the operating cost for the east-west route. These daily trips could easily be absorbed by service provided on the 30s Metrobus routes.

According to Georgetown Metropolitan, given the recent cuts that were made to the 30 Series, the Circulator change means there will be an overall 70 percent service cut on Wisconsin Avenue.

Read Marootian’s full email after the jump!

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In our interview with Jennifer Altemus, president of the Citizens’ Association of Georgetown, you may have noticed that she mentioned the possible cut of the Circulator route up Wisconsin Avenue.

The Circulator buses (which aren’t nearly as ugly as the Metrobuses) run relatively reliably every ten minutes, providing one of the few good public transportation links between Georgetown and downtown D.C. But if DDOT gets its way, that may not be the case for much longer: they’re hoping to lob off the Wisconsin Avenue portion of the Circulator route.

According to GM, the change is being made due to budgetary concerns and has already been signed off on by City Administrator Neil Albert.

Last year, Metrobus’ 30s series service to Georgetown was thinned out in the name of reliability. Instead of five 30 routes connecting Georgetown to downtown, there are now two (and a third that heads to Foggy Bottom). At the same time, the Circulator also planned to cut its route back from Wisconsin.

Only pressure from residents, along with the need to pick up the slack from the pared down 30s, kept them from cutting down the route. Now, the Circulator may finally go the way of the 30s, effectively crippling good bus service in Georgetown.

CAG is campaigning to keep the Circulator running up Wisconsin.  If you want to join their crusade, you can send Mayor Adrian Fenty a letter or e-mail asking him to intervene.

After the jump, check out the form letter CAG wrote up which you can send to the Mayor.

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As buses go, GUTS buses aren’t that bad. They’re a convenient way to get from Georgetown to the Metro; they run fairly regularly on weekdays; and they’re free—a ride on the DuPont GUTS bus combined with a brisk fifteen minute walk down Connecticut brings my daily commuting cost to zero.

Still, I do have a few bones to pick.

1. Some of the GUTS bus drivers won’t let people without Georgetown IDs ride the bus. Two of my housemates—one from Skidmore, one from Bates—often run into this problem when taking the bus to and from their internships. Some drivers will just let you sign a piece of paper if you don’t have a GoCard, but others refuse to let you on. My advice to non-Georgetown GUTS bus riders: persist—the rules are on your side. From the GUTS bus website:

Faculty, staff and students with a valid Georgetown University ID card can ride along any GUTS route at no charge. Physicians, staff and patients with valid GUH ID may ride the Rosslyn and Dupont shuttles. Visitors and persons doing business on campus may also ride free of charge and must show a picture ID at the time of boarding. [emphasis added]

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Washington’s Department of Transportation plan to move inter-city buses like DC2NY and Chinatown buses to L’Enfant Plaza has been suspended. Good news for anyone interested in convenient bus pick-ups or having an excuse to visit Chinatown’s Fuddruckers.

Via Greater Greater Washington

Catching any of the 30s buses along Wisconsin used to be like catfish noodling–it takes time, and once you stick your hand in, there’s no telling what’ll chomp down. That might change now that Metro revamped the line last Sunday, hoping to improve its reliability and customer satisfaction.

The 30 series, which runs from Friendship Heights through Georgetown and down Pennsylvania Ave on its way to the Maryland border in Southeast, is the busiest Metrobus line, serving 20,000 riders daily. Due to their extraordinarily long route along some of the District’s busiest roads, they are also among the slowest and least reliable.

In mid-2007, Metro commissioned a study to determine what could be done to improve the line. It noted that riders were most concerned with crowding on the bus, frequency, and timeliness. That study prompted Metro to create 3 distinct route categories: local routes (the remaining crosstown buses), neighborhood connectors, and limited-stop services.

Before the change, all 5 buses were crosstown, now only 2 are. The other 3 bus routes have been replaced with 2 neighborhood connectors and 2 express services. Of use to students are the 32 and 36 locals, which still travel to Southeast, and the newly-created 31 neighborhood, which runs from Friendship Heights to Foggy Bottom.

To ensure that buses do not bunch up in traffic, Metro will also post dispatchers along the routes. If the new system goes as planned, expect a bus roughly every 5-10 minutes along Wisconsin.

Photo from Flickr user FredoAlvarez used under a Creative Commons license

Charter bus company DC2NY is getting desperate. The company sent out 2 emails in 24 hours yesterday asking for help help against a new mandate forcing all intercity buses to load at L’Enfant Promenade, the only “designated intercity bus zone”.

That order comes courtesy of the District’s Department of Transportation, and means all the companies, including beloved Chinatown buses, will have to leave their native environs. DC2NY, naturally, has a counter-proposal: designating their turf at Dupont Circle an inter-city bus zone too. Their plan to do that involves getting their fans in DC, who have so often benefited from DC2NY’s help with distant concerts or booty calls, to pitch in by emailing Transportation employees and councilmembers.

After all, as those water bottle mongers insist, Southwest is scary! Save Dupont! Write to our favorite  councilman Jack Evans (who conveniently sits on the relevant committee) and help DC2NY load wherever it likes.

Whole e-mail, with a font that practically says, “Remember me, the cool bus? We had great times, didn’t we?”, after the jump

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