Blog Archives
Alert: Bus Service Changes on 2/9
An expected 1 to 3 inches of snow may arrive in the DC area starting tonight and into Tuesday. Last Friday there were notices distributed by the Mayor’s office to announce snow removal team deployments to treat or plow streets. Additional information can be found on the DC government website.
WMATA has just announced a “Moderate Snow Plan” in effect at the start of Tuesday. No D3, D4, or D8 buses operate during a moderate snow plan. The moderate snow plan will be in effect early in the day but may change as weather and road conditions do. Please be aware and plan accordingly for a possible alternative commute if you rely on these buses in the morning. Changes will be announced on the WMATA website.
H Street Festival Traffic / Parking Reminder
The H Street Festival will be held Saturday, September 19th from noon to 7 pm. H Street (from 4th to 14th Streets) will close earlier for set up and will remain closed until tear down and clean up are complete. Be prepared (and patient) for high traffic volume around the neighborhood and a lack of parking spaces in and around Trinidad, especially on streets to the south closer to H Street. There will also be changes to bus travel. At a minimum, as all of H Street from 14th Street to 4th Street will be closed, the X2, D8, and 90 buses will all be rerouted.
No press releases on road closures and transit changes are available yet from MPD, WMATA, or the H Street Festival but plan in advance for travel delays in moving about on Saturday (or walk down to enjoy the festival).
Fresh Farm Market at 13th and H Street indicated that they WILL be open regular hours on Saturday (9-12).
No More D3? MetroBus Service Changes Proposed
Eliminate the D3? Extend the D4 route to Kennedy Center, replacing part of the 80 bus route? More X1 and X3 buses on the route during the day?
Those are some of the proposed metro bus route changes that WMATA is considering. They will be holding public hearing number 606 on September 17, 2015 on the proposed changes. The public information session will begin at 6 pm and public hearing will be at 6:30 pm. The hearing will be held at Metro Headquarters Building 600 5th Street, NW.
The hearing is a public forum and all are invited to present their views. If you wish to speak at the hearing, please submit your name and organizational affiliation, if applicable, by email to speak@wmata.com or by phone to (202) 962-2511. You can also submit written statements by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23, 2015 to writtentestimony@wmata.com.
Not ready to submit written testimony or attend the hearing? You can participate in a survey at http://www.wmata.com/betterbus. The survey opened on August 15th and will close on September 23. It includes feedback questions on the proposal and related service changes as well as demographic questions.
You can view all proposed route and tariff changes here.
ALERT: WMATA proposal to eliminate D3 bus – your testimony needed!
Recent news coverage has failed to point out that WMATA is proposing elimination of the D3 bus line as a part of its latest restructuring, and little time remains to voice your concerns about this proposal. The D3 currently provides a direct connection from Ivy City, through Trinidad, to downtown, Dupont Circle, and Georgetown. It provides a convenient way to access Metrorail’s Green and Yellow lines, by disembarking at 7th and E Streets NW.
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Metro’s rationale for eliminating the D3 is “duplication with other routes” and “low productivity.” We haven’t found anything quantifying “productivity” on WMATA’s website, so we don’t quite know how it is defined. Perhaps one thing causing “low productivity” would be a low farebox recovery rate on the line. A number of riders in the neighborhood have noted that the fareboxes on the buses are not frequently working – it means a free ride, but that clearly hurts the system financially in the long run. Additionally, we’d guess those free rides aren’t counted in the overall ridership totals for the line.
Other bus routes certainly run through Trinidad, but nothing provides a direct connection from our neighborhood to the other side of the central business district in the morning. WMATA does not clearly state whether they will increase bus frequency on the other lines that run on Montello and Trinidad Avenues (D4 and D8) to make up for the lost capacity.
Speaking of the D4, it will be changing as well.
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The D4 route, which currently runs between Ivy City and Franklin Square, will more than double in length when it’s extended north from Ivy City to the Fort Totten Metro Station. It will be taking over the easternmost part of the E2, E3, and E4 lines, which currently run from from Friendship Heights through Fort Totten to Ivy City.
Longer routes can lead to more opportunities for buses to fall off schedule, as well as “bunching,” which is when many buses on one route arrive at a stop at once. This can lead to very long waits between buses instead of the expected even spacing.
Metro originally announced a hearing for the changes happening in Northeast DC for October 30, but the impact of Hurricane Sandy meant that it was rescheduled to November 26, the Monday that just passed.
A heading says “Routes seeing improvements in this bus service change proposal” on the page with the public hearing schedule, but the list does not mention the elimination of the D3. Certainly, one could argue that the elimination of a route is not an improvement, so WMATA was under no obligation to list the removal of the route on that list. We would argue the total elimination of a route is something that should be prominently noted, regardless of whether this is an “improvement” or not.
An additional problem is that we have seen no signs at the bus stops along the route alerting people to these changes. Certainly people who ride the D3 would be interested to know their bus is going away, and wouldn’t the best place to reach those people be on the bus itself?
There’s still time to let WMATA know what you think (though not much time). Written testimony can be emailed or faxed to WMATA, but you must do so by 9:00 am on Monday, December 3. From WMATA’s website:
Written statements and exhibits may be sent to the Office of the Secretary, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 600 Fifth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001, or e-mailed to writtentestimony@wmata.com. Statements also may be faxed to 202-962-1133. Please reference the hearing number. [The hearing in NE DC was number 579, and the Docket number for all the proposed changes is B12-03.]
[From what we understand, the date for submissions was changed due to the hurricane as well, though the original press release does not indicate that.]. Please note that any personal information such as name, e-mail address, address, or telephone number you provide in the statement may be releasable to the public under the WMATA Public Access to Records Policy, available at http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/public_rr.cfm.
Let WMATA know what you think about the changes to the D3, D4, or any other route that they plan to change in the new year.
Trinidad Neighborhood Association 