Photo: It gets dark really early around here. Courtesy of MoWorld; reprinted with permission.
PART TWO — Metro’s Red Line could be swamped with rush-hour commuters by 2025, even sooner for the rail system’s other lines, one transportation expert warned. So what the hell is a transit authority supposed to do?
First, it can make use of existing infrastructure, one Action Committee for Transit member suggested at a meeting in July. (Didn’t catch his name — my bad.) MARC’s Brunswick line, which runs parallel to Metro’s Red Line, could serve commuters between Silver Spring and Union Station if additional stops were added along the route.
“There’s existing capacity there that’s underutilized,” the dude said. “Why not take advantage of it?”
Second (and this one’s for loyal Penguin reader LuvMyHood), bus service running parallel to Metro lines can be beefed up, Nat Bottigheimer, an assistant general manager with Metro, recommended. That kind of “transit redundancy” takes a load off the rail lines. It also gives passengers an alternate ride home if the rails fail, as they did following the Jun 22 Red Line crash outside the Fort Totten station.
“We need to have bus service that’s high capacity, and we can have that in place soon,” he told action committee members.
Last, connectivity between Metro stations can be improved, Bottigheimer said. For example, the Red Line’s Farragut North station could be connected by a pedestrian tunnel with the Blue and Orange Lines’ Farragut West station. That would lift some of the crowding at Metro Center, the nearest transfer point for those three lines.
Metro plans to study all of this shit in further depth. An interim report should be ready by November, Bottigheimer said.
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Hey, Jennifer! VERY interesting. WMATA changed bus routes when Metrorail came along. Purple Line planners have said that bus service would be cut back if the rail project is built. The rail v bus conflict is infuriating for so many reasons. Rail can result in worse transit service if one’s bus route is wiped out. But it is also a class thing. WMATA’s rider surveys indicate that bus riders are more likely to be female, and lower income. Rail riders are more likely to be male, and higher income. The impact cascades — rail is a source of affluent riders, so rezone the areas around rail stops for pricier stuff, wiping out the apts. & small houses where bus riders live. Bus service all over the metro area AND the USA in general needs a big boost. I fear that rail has been co-opted by the bad old urban renewal crowd, dressed in new clothes.
What we need is some really good bus rapid transit down Georgia Avenue. Imagine a route that has a dedicated lane only for buses, where the vehicles can time the traffic signals so the buses don’t get stopped at red lights and that makes just a few stops (I’m thinking stops at Silver Spring, Walter Reed, Petworth Metro, Howard, and Gallery Place). Commuters who now take the red or green lines could be whisked down Georgia Avenue in a fraction of the time that it takes to ride the #70 and at travel times that are competitive with rail service. WMATA offered Metro Extra down Georgia Avenue a few years ago. It makes more limited stops then the #70, but I rode it once down to the Navy Memorial and back and did not find the travel time savings worth it to switch away from the Red Line.
but I rode it once down to the Navy Memorial and back and did not find the travel time savings worth it to switch away from the Red Line.
Yeah, plus many of us are members of the LoveMyHood’s delusional “bad old urban renewal crowd, dressed in new clothes,” and we DEFINITELY don’t want to sit next to poor people.
Editor’s note: Play nice. — JD (Sep 24, 2009)
In addition to the previous posters’ ideas and the comments in the article: continue encouraging bicycle commuting. Finish the Metropolitan Branch trail to Union Station. Create a viable (wide enough,maintained to clear debris, and available on both sides of the road) bikeway in Rock Creek Park from SS to downtown DC.
Not everyone wants to commute by bike, but for each one of us who does, a seat – or standing place – on public transit is freed up and a car stays off the road.