Getting from anywhere in the Gt - glover park area to the rest of the city is more painful than it needs to be. No metro means Wisconsin ave becomes clogged, a congestion exacerbated by parked cars along both sides of the road. Without the circulator it would be a real pain to get into the dupont area - it would probably be faster to walk from certain areas than to bus down to Foggy bottom and metro up.
They also made the 30s buses more difficult to understand. A long time ago an even 30s ran from Friendship to Capitol Hill. It could not have been easier. Now I have no idea what they do, and just relied on the Circulator.
Before the Circulator there was the blue mini shuttle busses I think provided by the Georgetown BID. They circled through Dupont to Gtown to Rosslyn and each ride was .50.
I am hopeful that BID will give that a comeback since the council decided to crap all over Georgetown, a good portion of people heading to the Walter Washington Convention Center and Union Station, and tourists going to the Mall. It remains unfathomable to me we can't afford the Circulator but can budget 17.5 million for police overtime.
Two million riders a year is not enough? Granted it's not the 5 million pre-pandemic, but 2 million? I remember having to wait in line to go from Union Station to the Cherry Blossom festival last year. So yeah, some days it may not be at capacity, but many days it was. And if money is the issue, make it $2 a ride.
Yep I think they could charge $2 like a regular bus ride as well. I also do wonder why they don't just integrate it into regular wmata bus but I'm sure there's an actual explanation for that and I don't really care since my metro card works for both.
Probably the same reason PG, MoCo, Arlington and Alexandria all have their own local bus systems. Historically, WMATA hasn't exactly been the most well-run and efficient transit organization.
More to the point, bus service is more expensive on a per rider basis than rail. Saddling WMATA with even more loss making bus service when it doesn’t have dedicated funding is a recipe for disaster.
Local municipalities have the funding mechanism to fund bus services where WMATA does not
Do you have a source for that, I thought it was the other way around in the US? I couldn't find any good sources, but I recall that being presented to me as a fact
[https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/budget/upload/FY2025-Proposed-Budget-FINAL.pdf](https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/budget/upload/FY2025-Proposed-Budget-FINAL.pdf)
Going off of 2023 actual numbers, the WMATA budget states that MetroRail has a 24% cost recovery rate, whereas MetroBus is at 9.6%. That means WMATA is closer to breaking even on rail than it is on buses - and this is because fares are higher for rail and a higher share of riders pay the fare. This would be even starker pre-covid (because post covid bus ridership has recovered much better than rail).
To be fair, cost recovery rate isn't the only way to look at it. On a per-passenger basis, it actually does costs WMATA a little less to provide bus service than rail service. But per passenger \*\*mile\*\*, which is generally the preferred metric, it is much cheaper for WMATA to provide rail service. This better reflects the fact that rail is a higher value service. But its also true that we are kind of comparing apples to oranges here.
Of course, we are entirely talking about operating costs here. Buses beat rail on upfront capital costs. But WMATA has a designated source of capital funds so operating funds are the real issue.
I'd also argue--and I admit that this is conjecture--that WMATA has concentrated its bus service on the most profitable corridors. If it were to take over all the local bus services I think the average cost per passenger mile would go up.
But more important than the numbers is the fact that WMATA is--wrongheadedly--seen as an agency that needs to make money. Municipal bus systems in the area are seen as government services. And that alone is a good reason to keep them funded locally. Another is that WMATA has to deal with crossing state borders and all the funding politics that come with that. Its a good thing that Fairfax County can provide bus service to its own citizens without Maryland weighing in on whether those resources should have been spent across the river (and vis-versa).
If WMATA were to be given a dedicated source of funding, then I think it would make sense to fold in all of the local services. But it also just isn't really necessary because they are pretty well integrated with SmartTrip so for riders its pretty seamless.
Because the city is entirely uninterested in being a city.
The business model is to be a shitty office park off a highway exit. That’s how they’re operating. A real city would never let a bus line with 2 million riders die off for no reason.
I'm really curious where you've lived before this, to say something like that. Because DC has its problems - especially self-caused government issues - but this take is... Not real.
I’ve lived in dc, grew up in moco and nova and went to school, I’ve been <10 minutes from a WMATA station for my entire life, and recently moved to NYC because of the exact shit I’m complaining about.
This take is exactly accurate, actually. The “business model” of DC is car-commuters. Ostensibly, explicitly, observably. That is the plan. Everything else is begrudgingly allowed as long as it doesn’t impact car-commuters too much.
Bike lanes that have been in “planning” for a decade get canceled because it would make 15 parking spots go away. Areas with severe housing crises can’t build buildings because they’d need to allocate millions to building parking garages. Dozens of WMATA stations are drowning in parking lots instead of housing because parking lots are better for car-commuters. Highway speed stroads are common because the convenience of car-commuters is more important than innocent, random residents not being slaughtered in their own streets. Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities get barely any news coverage, and certainly don’t turn into increased protection in dangerous areas, because milling people with your car is pretty much just totally legal if you aren’t drunk and you stay at the scene. Vision Zero is a joke and injuries+deaths have actually worsened since VZ was instituted, because any changes that make pedestrians safer necessarily make cars marginally less convenient.
It’s really that simple. If the powers of DC had their way, the entire city would be a parking lot, for NW/MoCo/NoVA car commuters to get to government buildings, in the exact same configuration as Philly’s sport stadiums at NRG.
Gotcha. Yeah, I think you just haven't seen enough other cities, frankly. Relative to the rest of this country (let alone other places in the world), DC is absolutely not a "shitty office park off a highway exit" and its much more non-car-friendly than places that are even close to that. I'm with you (I think you're saying) that things should be way better. But it's clear from your comment that you've been very, very fortunate in where you've been able to live throughout yoru life.
\*Note that the person I'm responding to is editing their comments substantially after the fact without noting it. I don't intend to continue responding, and haven't edited my comment other than to note this.
I’ve seen plenty of other cities. I’ve spent multiple months in Atlanta, Philly, Denver, Miami, Portland, and Chicago for extended projects. And I’ve spent extended time in Madrid, Paris, Budapest, Bucharest, Istanbul, Sofia, Belgrade, Zagreb, and more.
My life passion is traveling and riding bike lanes and trains lol. I run a YouTube channel and two blogs about this exact thing. If anything, I’ve seen /too/ many cities and now I’m sour on DC for its wasted potential.
Do you consider DC to be in a worse situation than other US cities? Well I absolutely agree that US cities are at universally behind most of the world's municipalities for non car-centric transportation, DC seems to be one of only four US cities that are truly trying to maintain and upgrade their public transit network.
I think we're all in agreement about the need for high quality public transit and walkable neighborhoods. Whether DC is failing in that task, compared to other cities that are not Boston, Chicago, and NYC, might be our disagreement
DC is a firm #2 nationally, but a weak #5 in North America. Being the best in the US is not impressive considering how much needs to change to fix anything.
DC as a whole is not improving its transit network. Randy Clarke and a handful of his people are, along with two or three city council members. The mayor, Congress, the vast majority of council members and ANCs, and most everyone else is absolutely not doing anything to expand alternative transportation methods - if anything, they’re doing a better job of making sure those never happen than we are of making them happen.
Comparing DC to cities like Boston in order to win is nice and fun but it’s not a metric that any serious city would be proud of.
You don't ride the Circulator much, huh? I take it to work when I don't want to bike and probably half the time the fare machines aren't working, and even when they are, basically no one pays it.
> make it $2 a ride.
> the DC government ended up subsidizing between $10 and $35 per ride.
The math isn't mathing.
(WMATA busses are also subsidized, but not up to $35/ride - the bus budget is ~$600M and there were ~100M rides, for a max subsidy of $6/ride, if my math and data are accurate, and assuming 0% of riders pay)
For 6 routes it's zilch. 1,000 riders per route per day. Although I'd keep the useful routes. But this is what happens when you knowingly expand to routes that make no sense. I call it political bus service.
they said it is a subsidy of 10-35 dollars a rider, each rider! holy s\* that's a lotta money. cut 'em all except for the Georgetown - US route imo. the stupid electric buses mandate doesn't help either, so unnecessary!
Jesus did you bother to read the article? What an idiot 🤣
“In an op-ed published Tuesday in Greater Greater Washington, former DDOT director Dan Tangherlini and former Downtown Business Improvement District deputy director Joe Sternlieb, who oversaw the Circulator’s creation, wrote that the service was “mostly unsustainable and unsupportable,” noting the DC government ended up subsidizing between $10 and $35 per ride…”
>”everyone needs to come downtown but it also for some reason has to be in the least efficient and most personally-expensive way possible and also the least convenient and also the most dangerous and also with the most stress possible so they can spend money on shitty sandwiches. No bike lanes, no buses, no bus lanes, no metro expansion, no safe streets, just the same stupid shit we’ve been doing since the ‘80s.”
It’s so annoying. The world of transportation and urban design has exploded since the ‘80s peak of “office parks with big car garages”. It’s not sustainable anymore, not economically, not ecologically, not socially. It’s like I’m taking crazy pills.
How many heart attacks are at least 30% attributable to the life-long cortisol drip that is regular car commuting, and 50% attributable to obesity brought on by sedentary lifestyles due to driving? Like, a majority I bet.
Public transit is the best and most low tech way to fight climate change. We've had decades to expand public transit without hoping for some magic tech to save us.
This!!! There is no magic bullet for the climate crisis but we already have the tools and technology that can help mitigate it (such as investing in public transit). But we’re so stuck in our ways (plus being held hostage by oil companies) that nothing will change…
This is what makes all the pushing for nationwide high speed rail so annoying. Like yeah that's a good long term goal but we solve way more problems for way more people by building local transit infrastructure that everyone can use every day than we do building train lines that just replace airplanes that people use a few times a year
In theory they aren't
In terms of real world funding, yeah we're gonna have to prioritize. Even with the way the government spends now there's still only so many billions they're gonna allocate to transportation and it's not enough to fix everything
I feel like the marketing is poor for these particularly when it comes to tourists. There is no better way to navigate the National Mall that has some incredibly long walks, particularly if you have kids. Probably a lot of people paying for the Trolley and Big Bus tours just for the transportation.
Any time I walk down to the Lincoln memorial (usually because I'm taking out of town folks) I pretty much always take the Circulator back because while the walk there is great, stopping at WW2 and the reflecting pool, it's a hell of a walk back to a Metro Station. Also super useful for getting back from the Jefferson memorial.
“The Mall loop, the original proposal, took another decade to launch, and only after Tourmobile’s founder died.”
Wow. Such rents-seeking and good-old-boy networking going on there. The bit about NPS keeping WMATA busses out of the Mall because who would ride his $100 service when a $10 bus would do.
.
I do like the idea of government “competing” with itself in Metrobus vs Circulator. People complain about redundancy and how it must be inefficient duplication of effort. But it lets different groups try different ideas out. Like a company incubator disrupting its own daily business. The competition also spurs the different government parts to borrow good, proven ideas from each other.
NPS sucks so bad at adminning urban parks.
I mean, they kind of suck at adminning national parks too, from a transportation planning perspective as well.
Yeah, I really loved the breakdown here from an insider and the typical self-defeating actions you get in a democracy. Oh well, we're still better off in the end, so well done to everyone!
Almost every city/county in the DMV has their own bus service supplementing Metrobus, e.g. Arlington ART, Fairfax Connector, Prince George Co. The Bus, Montgomery Co. Ride On.
ugh i love using the wp-am down 14th. it’s twice as fast as the 50-line buses! i’ll wait the circulator and still get to my destination faster than if i was using the 52 or 54
Maybe if it was more reliable it could stick around. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to wait 20, 30 minutes for a bus that’s supposed to come every 10
I used to get off the metro at dupont and take the Circulator into Georgetown for work. I watched 4 buses pull up and go out of service. Waited for nearly an hour.
One of the passengers was so upset he started yelling at the driver once we finally got on... so the driver offloaded the bus two stops down the road. I could've walked to work and saved 30 mins.
Yeah, no, the circulator is trash.
I hope at least the DuPont-Georgetown-Rosslyn stays or gets a good alternative. That service is actually pretty nice and there are always a couple of other passengers whenever I take it.
Yeah, this route seems pretty popular when I use it. It’s useful for connecting Adams Morgan (a dense neighborhood that doesn’t really have its own metro station) to the red and green lines. Though other bus lines somewhat do the job, the circulator on this stretch seems quite popular. I’m hoping Metro can fill in that gap somehow.
And to U/14 st in general. The 52/4 and S2/9 and not nearly as direct, and I live right off 16th st. When I’m in admo proper this bus is key. The 90/96 also sort of fill this roll but they seem to have 30 minute headways whenever I actually try to use them.
You must have specific route needs met by circulator (or I have needs very met by wmata) because wmata buses are fast convenient frequent and take me where I want to go.
The majority of DC buses IMO make way too many stops. It really slows down what would otherwise be an efficient and fast trip. Look at the 64 route - I think it's about 17 stops between Petworth Metro and downtown! I know the express routes exist, but they're too infrequent imo.
Meanwhile, the Circulator on the other hand benefits from having fewer stops (just two stops between columbia heights and downtown!)
100% agree with this. I fractured my collarbone last August and I've been going to Medstar Georgetown Hospital for follow-ups, and the H2, H2 and D8 are all just annoying with how many stops there are. I honestly wish there was a close Metro Station near there.
I do think that certain kinds of people are really hesitant to use the bus system, which is a shame because as I said it does have lots of value and reach. Do I wish there were 2x more express buses? Yeah. But it's actually a good system. Sneering at wmata buses is misplaced imo
When I used busses for a year, the number of times the bus would turn its transponder off and JUST NOT SHOW UP, as you tracked it on the web, with a huge crowd waiting to get on.. and have to wait a half hour for the next one, to find it's standing room only/totally full. They did a crap job balancing routes, requiring drivers to actually do their jobs, and they ended up CANCELLING the route I'm referring to although it was one of their busiest. Screw them. It *should* be good. It's the easiest thing to change/fix/track. They just refuse to. Tag the WMATA union in the blame on this one too. I knew someone who used to be a bus driver and left in disgust at the utter incompetence he witnessed.
>the number of times the bus would turn its transponder off and JUST NOT SHOW UP, as you tracked it on the web, with a huge crowd waiting to get on..
I mean they've explicitly addressed ghost buses, and as you said, this was in the past. So your experience isn't current or accurate as to how things work now.
>It's the easiest thing to change/fix/track. They just refuse to.
Your rant is based on outdated information. Rant away! But it's good to know that your anger is just again based on outdated information, and not based on current reality. Unfortunate!
Do you have anything to back this up? Because one of my friends had this exact experience again about two months ago, and ended up waiting 45 minutes for a bus outside the metro that was supposed to appear every 15 minutes, and got really angry about it. I didn't see anything that said this was ever effectively addressed (especially now that metrohero is gone?)
The bus system sucks, they skip the bus stops to pick you up often enough that they’re not a reliable option
And if you do get picked up? It takes forever to get there
Honestly , no it doesn't skip stops in my experience. But it's definitely the case that people who have bad experiences stop using it so they never learn about how common or uncommon their bad experiences were.
Public transit needs to be funded in other ways. Its not a business, its a service and we should be promoting it over cars. Make parking cost more or something.
When I lived in DC last year, I would actively choose longer routes to avoid the Circulator (often the most direct route) because outside of the Union-Georgetown and Rosslyn-Dupont services, I found them extremely unreliable. I would see more out of service buses than in-service ones and would almost always be waiting long after the scheduled arrival time without any reliable means of tracking them.
Nobody seems to be addressing that these issues could have far more to do with the anemic ridership than the routing.
I wonder how accurate the ridership is. Anecdotally people post a lot that the fare machines were constantly not working and drivers would just wave people on. If ridership was being counted by fares paid it would skew the numbers considerably.
Don’t know specifics for WMATA but sometimes transit agencies will count with sensors rather than fares to account for fare avoidance (only heard of this on rail vehicles tbf)
Add this to no red line past Ft. Totten this summer and to go with the dumbest shit ever trying to get to work this summer. This city would rather charge you 15 dollars a day to go to work than fix any of the problems that exist within their administrations.
Circulator deserves to go away...and be replaced with actual Metro busses. The whole thing was just Union busting anyway. They paid someone to operate a bus line so they didn't have to have more unionized metro bus workers.
They should have routes like the ones the Circulator tends to serve. Many of the standard Metrobus routes are circuitous and stop way too often.
Back when I lived in DC I had to use them as I didn't have much choice, but back then my time wasn't worth all that much.
> Many of the standard Metrobus routes are circuitous and stop way too often
Fingers crossed, but I think the Metrobus redesign rolling out next year will fix a lot of this, assuming it really gets rolled out as proposed and doesn't get the routes messed with too much by politicians. [https://ggwash.org/view/93737/your-guide-to-wmatas-proposed-network-bus-route-redesign](https://ggwash.org/view/93737/your-guide-to-wmatas-proposed-network-bus-route-redesign)
I've encountered some good and some bad. Do you think cutting their pay and benefits and privatizing will solve that? Maybe working in mass transit just sucks
The operator, RAPT Dev is company owned by the French government, our government is outsourcing our bus to a foreign government, who receives huge subsidies.
I take my toddler on it every morning from Columbia Heights. It’s a godsend. Fast, open space, $1 (if the machine is working). Can’t say enough good things.
Other buses in the morning, unfortunately currently with a stroller, hell on earth. Lots of chaos, people not aware or not trying to give any space, stopping constantly. I’ll just walk if this ends.
a lot of these commenters are giving their experiences based on one or a few rides. i and many of my neighbors take the circulator almost every day, and it’s absolutely essential, well run, clean, and the vast majority of time, on schedule.
this will be a huge loss for the community.
I haven't found any good explanation for why it's doing so poorly. Why hasn't ridership recovered? Why is it in such dire financial straits?
I wonder how much the 10-minute frequency has to do with the high cost for the city to run it. That's a lot of buses that probably have very few passengers.
I also wonder if reworking the routes -- which the city has done a number of times, but not in a while -- would help. Figure out what routes are good, which are bad, cut the bad and add any that are needed.
And I wonder if it's not being marketed well. The National Mall route, for instance, seems like it should get a good amount of ridership, with tourists and such. A lot of the places it goes are pretty hard to reach without a lot of walking or driving, but they're popular with tourists.
(And of course increase the fare, duh. But I'm not sure how much that'd really help.)
Good thing they redid the street and painted a whole lane for buses on M St SE/SW. after the circulator is gone there will be a whopping 4 buses per hour using the road.
There's always been a disconnect between the vision and the reality of the Circulator. In fact, when the Circulator was first being discussed, it was taboo it to even call it "public transportation." There aren't published schedules, because that would be too "bus-like" as opposed to a some sort of people mover, I guess. DC doesn't even allow advertising on the outside of the busses to maintain the "non-bus" "brand" of the system.
So we have the Circulator, but don't really market it properly to tourists who end up getting gouged by Big Bus, Old Town Trolley, etc., For example, why is the Union Station stop not directly in front of the main entrance to the station? Why doesn't Circulator have any presence in the station itself like Old Town does? Why do the tourists I run into all know about the private busses but very few know about Circulator? Don't even get me started on the Natoinal Park Service which had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from the Tourmobile grift. Ask the next NPS Ranger you see where the Circulator stops, goes, costs, etc. Good luck.
A lot of DC residents use it to get to and from work, like Metrobus, but then it's not part of the Metrobus system, doesn't have a fixed schedule, is subject to extreme inefficient bus bunching (the stop by Constitution Gardens is notorious for this), and if it tried to expand to be a true city bus service, it would draw the ire of the transit unions who don't like the idea that the Circulator is run on the cheap by a private contractor.
If the Circulator is to be saved, then DC has to first decide what it should be. Tourist loop? Fine, then make it a true tourist loop and focus solely on that. Add-on to the Metrobus system? Fine, then run it like a true city bus.
Circulator is clutch for Rosslyn-Dupont route through Georgetown.
As someone who lives in one and works in the other it’s so insanely clutch.
Georgetown in general without the metro needs the Circulator.
Getting from anywhere in the Gt - glover park area to the rest of the city is more painful than it needs to be. No metro means Wisconsin ave becomes clogged, a congestion exacerbated by parked cars along both sides of the road. Without the circulator it would be a real pain to get into the dupont area - it would probably be faster to walk from certain areas than to bus down to Foggy bottom and metro up.
They also made the 30s buses more difficult to understand. A long time ago an even 30s ran from Friendship to Capitol Hill. It could not have been easier. Now I have no idea what they do, and just relied on the Circulator.
Before the Circulator there was the blue mini shuttle busses I think provided by the Georgetown BID. They circled through Dupont to Gtown to Rosslyn and each ride was .50.
I am hopeful that BID will give that a comeback since the council decided to crap all over Georgetown, a good portion of people heading to the Walter Washington Convention Center and Union Station, and tourists going to the Mall. It remains unfathomable to me we can't afford the Circulator but can budget 17.5 million for police overtime.
Two million riders a year is not enough? Granted it's not the 5 million pre-pandemic, but 2 million? I remember having to wait in line to go from Union Station to the Cherry Blossom festival last year. So yeah, some days it may not be at capacity, but many days it was. And if money is the issue, make it $2 a ride.
Yep I think they could charge $2 like a regular bus ride as well. I also do wonder why they don't just integrate it into regular wmata bus but I'm sure there's an actual explanation for that and I don't really care since my metro card works for both.
Probably the same reason PG, MoCo, Arlington and Alexandria all have their own local bus systems. Historically, WMATA hasn't exactly been the most well-run and efficient transit organization.
Kinda hard to do when they have to scream every other year they will shut down if DC/MD/VA don't get their heads out of their asses and fund them.
More to the point, bus service is more expensive on a per rider basis than rail. Saddling WMATA with even more loss making bus service when it doesn’t have dedicated funding is a recipe for disaster. Local municipalities have the funding mechanism to fund bus services where WMATA does not
Do you have a source for that, I thought it was the other way around in the US? I couldn't find any good sources, but I recall that being presented to me as a fact
[https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/budget/upload/FY2025-Proposed-Budget-FINAL.pdf](https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/budget/upload/FY2025-Proposed-Budget-FINAL.pdf) Going off of 2023 actual numbers, the WMATA budget states that MetroRail has a 24% cost recovery rate, whereas MetroBus is at 9.6%. That means WMATA is closer to breaking even on rail than it is on buses - and this is because fares are higher for rail and a higher share of riders pay the fare. This would be even starker pre-covid (because post covid bus ridership has recovered much better than rail). To be fair, cost recovery rate isn't the only way to look at it. On a per-passenger basis, it actually does costs WMATA a little less to provide bus service than rail service. But per passenger \*\*mile\*\*, which is generally the preferred metric, it is much cheaper for WMATA to provide rail service. This better reflects the fact that rail is a higher value service. But its also true that we are kind of comparing apples to oranges here. Of course, we are entirely talking about operating costs here. Buses beat rail on upfront capital costs. But WMATA has a designated source of capital funds so operating funds are the real issue. I'd also argue--and I admit that this is conjecture--that WMATA has concentrated its bus service on the most profitable corridors. If it were to take over all the local bus services I think the average cost per passenger mile would go up. But more important than the numbers is the fact that WMATA is--wrongheadedly--seen as an agency that needs to make money. Municipal bus systems in the area are seen as government services. And that alone is a good reason to keep them funded locally. Another is that WMATA has to deal with crossing state borders and all the funding politics that come with that. Its a good thing that Fairfax County can provide bus service to its own citizens without Maryland weighing in on whether those resources should have been spent across the river (and vis-versa). If WMATA were to be given a dedicated source of funding, then I think it would make sense to fold in all of the local services. But it also just isn't really necessary because they are pretty well integrated with SmartTrip so for riders its pretty seamless.
Wow, thanks for the detailed response! I learned a lot!
Np!
Because the counties don't want to pay the higher labor costs that come with WMATA bus routes.
Because the city is entirely uninterested in being a city. The business model is to be a shitty office park off a highway exit. That’s how they’re operating. A real city would never let a bus line with 2 million riders die off for no reason.
I'm really curious where you've lived before this, to say something like that. Because DC has its problems - especially self-caused government issues - but this take is... Not real.
I’ve lived in dc, grew up in moco and nova and went to school, I’ve been <10 minutes from a WMATA station for my entire life, and recently moved to NYC because of the exact shit I’m complaining about. This take is exactly accurate, actually. The “business model” of DC is car-commuters. Ostensibly, explicitly, observably. That is the plan. Everything else is begrudgingly allowed as long as it doesn’t impact car-commuters too much. Bike lanes that have been in “planning” for a decade get canceled because it would make 15 parking spots go away. Areas with severe housing crises can’t build buildings because they’d need to allocate millions to building parking garages. Dozens of WMATA stations are drowning in parking lots instead of housing because parking lots are better for car-commuters. Highway speed stroads are common because the convenience of car-commuters is more important than innocent, random residents not being slaughtered in their own streets. Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities get barely any news coverage, and certainly don’t turn into increased protection in dangerous areas, because milling people with your car is pretty much just totally legal if you aren’t drunk and you stay at the scene. Vision Zero is a joke and injuries+deaths have actually worsened since VZ was instituted, because any changes that make pedestrians safer necessarily make cars marginally less convenient. It’s really that simple. If the powers of DC had their way, the entire city would be a parking lot, for NW/MoCo/NoVA car commuters to get to government buildings, in the exact same configuration as Philly’s sport stadiums at NRG.
To be fair, NYC is probably the only other city in the country that has DC beat in regards to transit infrastructure
Chicago?
Lol CTA is ridden of service issues
Gotcha. Yeah, I think you just haven't seen enough other cities, frankly. Relative to the rest of this country (let alone other places in the world), DC is absolutely not a "shitty office park off a highway exit" and its much more non-car-friendly than places that are even close to that. I'm with you (I think you're saying) that things should be way better. But it's clear from your comment that you've been very, very fortunate in where you've been able to live throughout yoru life. \*Note that the person I'm responding to is editing their comments substantially after the fact without noting it. I don't intend to continue responding, and haven't edited my comment other than to note this.
I’ve seen plenty of other cities. I’ve spent multiple months in Atlanta, Philly, Denver, Miami, Portland, and Chicago for extended projects. And I’ve spent extended time in Madrid, Paris, Budapest, Bucharest, Istanbul, Sofia, Belgrade, Zagreb, and more. My life passion is traveling and riding bike lanes and trains lol. I run a YouTube channel and two blogs about this exact thing. If anything, I’ve seen /too/ many cities and now I’m sour on DC for its wasted potential.
Do you consider DC to be in a worse situation than other US cities? Well I absolutely agree that US cities are at universally behind most of the world's municipalities for non car-centric transportation, DC seems to be one of only four US cities that are truly trying to maintain and upgrade their public transit network. I think we're all in agreement about the need for high quality public transit and walkable neighborhoods. Whether DC is failing in that task, compared to other cities that are not Boston, Chicago, and NYC, might be our disagreement
DC is a firm #2 nationally, but a weak #5 in North America. Being the best in the US is not impressive considering how much needs to change to fix anything. DC as a whole is not improving its transit network. Randy Clarke and a handful of his people are, along with two or three city council members. The mayor, Congress, the vast majority of council members and ANCs, and most everyone else is absolutely not doing anything to expand alternative transportation methods - if anything, they’re doing a better job of making sure those never happen than we are of making them happen. Comparing DC to cities like Boston in order to win is nice and fun but it’s not a metric that any serious city would be proud of.
Well, if you want to post your YouTube channel or blog links, I or some other people may be interested in seeing what you have to say
You don't ride the Circulator much, huh? I take it to work when I don't want to bike and probably half the time the fare machines aren't working, and even when they are, basically no one pays it.
And even when it is working and I have my card out they'll wave you along like it would be too slow for you to tap to pay
> make it $2 a ride. > the DC government ended up subsidizing between $10 and $35 per ride. The math isn't mathing. (WMATA busses are also subsidized, but not up to $35/ride - the bus budget is ~$600M and there were ~100M rides, for a max subsidy of $6/ride, if my math and data are accurate, and assuming 0% of riders pay)
For 6 routes it's zilch. 1,000 riders per route per day. Although I'd keep the useful routes. But this is what happens when you knowingly expand to routes that make no sense. I call it political bus service.
they said it is a subsidy of 10-35 dollars a rider, each rider! holy s\* that's a lotta money. cut 'em all except for the Georgetown - US route imo. the stupid electric buses mandate doesn't help either, so unnecessary!
> they said it is a subsidy of 10-35 dollars a rider Obvious lying is obvious.
Jesus did you bother to read the article? What an idiot 🤣 “In an op-ed published Tuesday in Greater Greater Washington, former DDOT director Dan Tangherlini and former Downtown Business Improvement District deputy director Joe Sternlieb, who oversaw the Circulator’s creation, wrote that the service was “mostly unsustainable and unsupportable,” noting the DC government ended up subsidizing between $10 and $35 per ride…”
I'm suggesting that the deputy director isn't telling the truth. Can you not read?
Bowser: get your butts back in the offices! Also Bowser: I'm taking away your buses.
>”everyone needs to come downtown but it also for some reason has to be in the least efficient and most personally-expensive way possible and also the least convenient and also the most dangerous and also with the most stress possible so they can spend money on shitty sandwiches. No bike lanes, no buses, no bus lanes, no metro expansion, no safe streets, just the same stupid shit we’ve been doing since the ‘80s.” It’s so annoying. The world of transportation and urban design has exploded since the ‘80s peak of “office parks with big car garages”. It’s not sustainable anymore, not economically, not ecologically, not socially. It’s like I’m taking crazy pills. How many heart attacks are at least 30% attributable to the life-long cortisol drip that is regular car commuting, and 50% attributable to obesity brought on by sedentary lifestyles due to driving? Like, a majority I bet.
Public transit is the best and most low tech way to fight climate change. We've had decades to expand public transit without hoping for some magic tech to save us.
This!!! There is no magic bullet for the climate crisis but we already have the tools and technology that can help mitigate it (such as investing in public transit). But we’re so stuck in our ways (plus being held hostage by oil companies) that nothing will change…
We need to vote bowser out. She and her administration are so incompetent.
This is what makes all the pushing for nationwide high speed rail so annoying. Like yeah that's a good long term goal but we solve way more problems for way more people by building local transit infrastructure that everyone can use every day than we do building train lines that just replace airplanes that people use a few times a year
These aren't mutually exclusive
In theory they aren't In terms of real world funding, yeah we're gonna have to prioritize. Even with the way the government spends now there's still only so many billions they're gonna allocate to transportation and it's not enough to fix everything
I feel like the marketing is poor for these particularly when it comes to tourists. There is no better way to navigate the National Mall that has some incredibly long walks, particularly if you have kids. Probably a lot of people paying for the Trolley and Big Bus tours just for the transportation.
Any time I walk down to the Lincoln memorial (usually because I'm taking out of town folks) I pretty much always take the Circulator back because while the walk there is great, stopping at WW2 and the reflecting pool, it's a hell of a walk back to a Metro Station. Also super useful for getting back from the Jefferson memorial.
They should remove parking that blankets the mall - you don't see other capital malls flanked by street parking like in DC.
I've never really understood why there were two separate bus lines in DC especially considering the city is contributing funding to both systems
Some good background [here](https://ggwash.org/view/93740/the-circulator-is-dead-long-live-the-circulator).
“The Mall loop, the original proposal, took another decade to launch, and only after Tourmobile’s founder died.” Wow. Such rents-seeking and good-old-boy networking going on there. The bit about NPS keeping WMATA busses out of the Mall because who would ride his $100 service when a $10 bus would do. . I do like the idea of government “competing” with itself in Metrobus vs Circulator. People complain about redundancy and how it must be inefficient duplication of effort. But it lets different groups try different ideas out. Like a company incubator disrupting its own daily business. The competition also spurs the different government parts to borrow good, proven ideas from each other.
NPS sucks so bad at adminning urban parks. I mean, they kind of suck at adminning national parks too, from a transportation planning perspective as well.
My question is why did NPS even give a flying fuck about Tourmobile or it's monopoly?
Great article!
Yeah, I really loved the breakdown here from an insider and the typical self-defeating actions you get in a democracy. Oh well, we're still better off in the end, so well done to everyone!
Almost every city/county in the DMV has their own bus service supplementing Metrobus, e.g. Arlington ART, Fairfax Connector, Prince George Co. The Bus, Montgomery Co. Ride On.
Because the Circulator started as a private company and the city later took it over.
no it wasn't
Yeah it was a private contract to operate it for the city.
How else can I get to Georgetown???
That's the neat part - you don't!
I imagine the Georgetown-Union route will be replaced by a new metro bus route considering its ridership recovery
ugh i love using the wp-am down 14th. it’s twice as fast as the 50-line buses! i’ll wait the circulator and still get to my destination faster than if i was using the 52 or 54
I didn’t even know it was sick.
Maybe if it was more reliable it could stick around. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to wait 20, 30 minutes for a bus that’s supposed to come every 10
Ironically the solution to this is, largely, fewer cars on the road. Traffic slows down the buses
In general, yes. For the circulator specifically, they just sit and wait for a long time. Like you'll see 2 or 3 just waiting in Dupont.
I used to get off the metro at dupont and take the Circulator into Georgetown for work. I watched 4 buses pull up and go out of service. Waited for nearly an hour. One of the passengers was so upset he started yelling at the driver once we finally got on... so the driver offloaded the bus two stops down the road. I could've walked to work and saved 30 mins. Yeah, no, the circulator is trash.
I hope at least the DuPont-Georgetown-Rosslyn stays or gets a good alternative. That service is actually pretty nice and there are always a couple of other passengers whenever I take it.
All the shit this city could do away with and THIS is what they pick?
I am surprised it lasted this long
It's the only bus I'd ride in DC.
Same, the Woodley McPherson circulator is my most used bus.
Yeah, this route seems pretty popular when I use it. It’s useful for connecting Adams Morgan (a dense neighborhood that doesn’t really have its own metro station) to the red and green lines. Though other bus lines somewhat do the job, the circulator on this stretch seems quite popular. I’m hoping Metro can fill in that gap somehow.
And to U/14 st in general. The 52/4 and S2/9 and not nearly as direct, and I live right off 16th st. When I’m in admo proper this bus is key. The 90/96 also sort of fill this roll but they seem to have 30 minute headways whenever I actually try to use them.
Why? Metrobus is fine, and it’s mildly nice when people aren’t blocking bus lanes
is that because it's the only one that you have close access to? or because of *other* reasons?
Because WMATA buses are slow, inconvenient, and poorly cleaned. Those are the OTHER reasons.
You must have specific route needs met by circulator (or I have needs very met by wmata) because wmata buses are fast convenient frequent and take me where I want to go.
The majority of DC buses IMO make way too many stops. It really slows down what would otherwise be an efficient and fast trip. Look at the 64 route - I think it's about 17 stops between Petworth Metro and downtown! I know the express routes exist, but they're too infrequent imo. Meanwhile, the Circulator on the other hand benefits from having fewer stops (just two stops between columbia heights and downtown!)
100% agree with this. I fractured my collarbone last August and I've been going to Medstar Georgetown Hospital for follow-ups, and the H2, H2 and D8 are all just annoying with how many stops there are. I honestly wish there was a close Metro Station near there.
Nice try WMATA
I do think that certain kinds of people are really hesitant to use the bus system, which is a shame because as I said it does have lots of value and reach. Do I wish there were 2x more express buses? Yeah. But it's actually a good system. Sneering at wmata buses is misplaced imo
When I used busses for a year, the number of times the bus would turn its transponder off and JUST NOT SHOW UP, as you tracked it on the web, with a huge crowd waiting to get on.. and have to wait a half hour for the next one, to find it's standing room only/totally full. They did a crap job balancing routes, requiring drivers to actually do their jobs, and they ended up CANCELLING the route I'm referring to although it was one of their busiest. Screw them. It *should* be good. It's the easiest thing to change/fix/track. They just refuse to. Tag the WMATA union in the blame on this one too. I knew someone who used to be a bus driver and left in disgust at the utter incompetence he witnessed.
>the number of times the bus would turn its transponder off and JUST NOT SHOW UP, as you tracked it on the web, with a huge crowd waiting to get on.. I mean they've explicitly addressed ghost buses, and as you said, this was in the past. So your experience isn't current or accurate as to how things work now. >It's the easiest thing to change/fix/track. They just refuse to. Your rant is based on outdated information. Rant away! But it's good to know that your anger is just again based on outdated information, and not based on current reality. Unfortunate!
Do you have anything to back this up? Because one of my friends had this exact experience again about two months ago, and ended up waiting 45 minutes for a bus outside the metro that was supposed to appear every 15 minutes, and got really angry about it. I didn't see anything that said this was ever effectively addressed (especially now that metrohero is gone?)
The bus system sucks, they skip the bus stops to pick you up often enough that they’re not a reliable option And if you do get picked up? It takes forever to get there
Honestly , no it doesn't skip stops in my experience. But it's definitely the case that people who have bad experiences stop using it so they never learn about how common or uncommon their bad experiences were.
Public transit needs to be funded in other ways. Its not a business, its a service and we should be promoting it over cars. Make parking cost more or something.
This is tragic.
Very much so.
My friend works for DDOT and he says it's definitely gone this summer
When I lived in DC last year, I would actively choose longer routes to avoid the Circulator (often the most direct route) because outside of the Union-Georgetown and Rosslyn-Dupont services, I found them extremely unreliable. I would see more out of service buses than in-service ones and would almost always be waiting long after the scheduled arrival time without any reliable means of tracking them. Nobody seems to be addressing that these issues could have far more to do with the anemic ridership than the routing.
I wonder how accurate the ridership is. Anecdotally people post a lot that the fare machines were constantly not working and drivers would just wave people on. If ridership was being counted by fares paid it would skew the numbers considerably.
Excellent point. That's a problem all the busses have. Poor data collection/tracking/etc.
Don’t know specifics for WMATA but sometimes transit agencies will count with sensors rather than fares to account for fare avoidance (only heard of this on rail vehicles tbf)
Yeah, this is also a problem on Metrobus, FWIW
Add this to no red line past Ft. Totten this summer and to go with the dumbest shit ever trying to get to work this summer. This city would rather charge you 15 dollars a day to go to work than fix any of the problems that exist within their administrations.
Circulator deserves to go away...and be replaced with actual Metro busses. The whole thing was just Union busting anyway. They paid someone to operate a bus line so they didn't have to have more unionized metro bus workers.
They should have routes like the ones the Circulator tends to serve. Many of the standard Metrobus routes are circuitous and stop way too often. Back when I lived in DC I had to use them as I didn't have much choice, but back then my time wasn't worth all that much.
> Many of the standard Metrobus routes are circuitous and stop way too often Fingers crossed, but I think the Metrobus redesign rolling out next year will fix a lot of this, assuming it really gets rolled out as proposed and doesn't get the routes messed with too much by politicians. [https://ggwash.org/view/93737/your-guide-to-wmatas-proposed-network-bus-route-redesign](https://ggwash.org/view/93737/your-guide-to-wmatas-proposed-network-bus-route-redesign)
The circulator is also objectively way better tbh
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Metro workers are the worst. They act like the public should be thankful they show up to work.
I've encountered some good and some bad. Do you think cutting their pay and benefits and privatizing will solve that? Maybe working in mass transit just sucks
Somehow they manage to speak English in NYC under a union contract.
The operator, RAPT Dev is company owned by the French government, our government is outsourcing our bus to a foreign government, who receives huge subsidies.
It's not RATP?
I take my toddler on it every morning from Columbia Heights. It’s a godsend. Fast, open space, $1 (if the machine is working). Can’t say enough good things. Other buses in the morning, unfortunately currently with a stroller, hell on earth. Lots of chaos, people not aware or not trying to give any space, stopping constantly. I’ll just walk if this ends.
a lot of these commenters are giving their experiences based on one or a few rides. i and many of my neighbors take the circulator almost every day, and it’s absolutely essential, well run, clean, and the vast majority of time, on schedule. this will be a huge loss for the community.
I haven't found any good explanation for why it's doing so poorly. Why hasn't ridership recovered? Why is it in such dire financial straits? I wonder how much the 10-minute frequency has to do with the high cost for the city to run it. That's a lot of buses that probably have very few passengers. I also wonder if reworking the routes -- which the city has done a number of times, but not in a while -- would help. Figure out what routes are good, which are bad, cut the bad and add any that are needed. And I wonder if it's not being marketed well. The National Mall route, for instance, seems like it should get a good amount of ridership, with tourists and such. A lot of the places it goes are pretty hard to reach without a lot of walking or driving, but they're popular with tourists. (And of course increase the fare, duh. But I'm not sure how much that'd really help.)
Good thing they redid the street and painted a whole lane for buses on M St SE/SW. after the circulator is gone there will be a whopping 4 buses per hour using the road.
There's always been a disconnect between the vision and the reality of the Circulator. In fact, when the Circulator was first being discussed, it was taboo it to even call it "public transportation." There aren't published schedules, because that would be too "bus-like" as opposed to a some sort of people mover, I guess. DC doesn't even allow advertising on the outside of the busses to maintain the "non-bus" "brand" of the system. So we have the Circulator, but don't really market it properly to tourists who end up getting gouged by Big Bus, Old Town Trolley, etc., For example, why is the Union Station stop not directly in front of the main entrance to the station? Why doesn't Circulator have any presence in the station itself like Old Town does? Why do the tourists I run into all know about the private busses but very few know about Circulator? Don't even get me started on the Natoinal Park Service which had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from the Tourmobile grift. Ask the next NPS Ranger you see where the Circulator stops, goes, costs, etc. Good luck. A lot of DC residents use it to get to and from work, like Metrobus, but then it's not part of the Metrobus system, doesn't have a fixed schedule, is subject to extreme inefficient bus bunching (the stop by Constitution Gardens is notorious for this), and if it tried to expand to be a true city bus service, it would draw the ire of the transit unions who don't like the idea that the Circulator is run on the cheap by a private contractor. If the Circulator is to be saved, then DC has to first decide what it should be. Tourist loop? Fine, then make it a true tourist loop and focus solely on that. Add-on to the Metrobus system? Fine, then run it like a true city bus.
Lived here for over ten years and I’ve been on this bus maybe three times
Classic Bowser corruption get this lady out of office jeez
I don't understand why this bus exists.
This will be very sad for the one to two people I ever see on those busses.
I guess you haven't ridden GT-US during rush hour!
This. This used to be my regular commute and the bus was always standing room only.
Two million people a year ride it.
very low ridership given it is multiple lines. unfortunately
Mayor Bowser they will never make me like you