More buses are pretty much always good news. Recently WMATA announced they were going to add a morning bus to 16th Street, headed south. Finding that a lot of congestion happens from Euclid to U Street, they decided to add a new route, tentatively to be called the S3. Currently, a lot of people in Columbia Heights and to the south are out of luck in the morning with full buses forced to pass them by. (The afternoon buses didn’t have as much of a problem, so the plan is just for a morning route.)
There are two possible options: one starts at Euclid and runs south, stopping at every stop, and then turning around at Lafayette Square and heading north without stopping, so that the bus can restart and southbound route quickly. It would run about every 20 minutes. The other option has the same return north, but begins its trip south at U or V Street. That means it will miss most people in Columbia Heights, but because it starts farther south, it would be able to run about every 15 minutes. Each route would only have 2 buses.
It sounds a bit like a band-aid rather than a longer term solution, unless more buses are added, but hey, every little bit helps. I still think you should use We Move DC as well.
It seems like using the bigger, articulated buses like they use on Georgia Ave would be a good solution too, but probably not cheap. (And on that note, I’ve taken the big Georgia buses sometimes and they never seem very full. Anyone else notice this?) The bus might start running on March 24 if all goes well.
Hat tip to Greater Greater Washington, which has the full story.
