Northwest Georgetown January ANC Update

Happy new year and welcome to your January 2025 Northwest Georgetown ANC update!

I wanted to take this month’s update as an opportunity to discuss some big changes that have come and will soon come to the transit network for Georgetown. By the end of the year, the bus network through Georgetown will be radically different from how it was just a few months ago.

The first big change is one that took effect just this week: the end of the popular Circulator bus service. This service began in 2005 as a way to provide a quick and simple way for people to get around downtown DC without needing to overcome the steep learning curve that comes with most urban bus systems. They accomplished this by setting the fee at a nice round $1 and establishing a clear easy-to-understand map, with just a handful of routes. The most popular was the one that became the last one standing: the Georgetown to Union Station route. The target market was tourists, of course, but Georgetowners quickly learned to take advantage of the route as well. It replaced the “Blue Bus” system that the BID had previously established, so there was already a local demand for the service.

I was particularly grateful for the Circulator when my daughter was a baby because it was the only bus service that allowed you to bring on a baby stroller without collapsing it. Since our pediatrician was just over in Foggy Bottom, we spent a lot of time ferrying back and forth on the Circulator during those first couple years. Here’s my daughter on her very first bus ride in fact:

There were certainly mistakes made with the Circulator over the years. Politics on the Council led to the creation of multiple routes that lacked the justification that the first routes did. These routes became extremely expensive to maintain, as measured by the cost-per-rider. The economics of the system was further tested by the stretches when the service was just plain free. As the era of budget tightening took hold over the last couple years, the system was harder and harder to justify. Even two of the founders of the system, Joe Sternlieb and Dan Tangherlini, recognized that it’s time had passed.

(I would still like to point out that at the same time the Mayor and Council were concluding that the Circulator was not longer justifiable given the budget restraints, they gave a billionaire another half a billion dollars for a sports arena. The requirement to tighten belts is not a uniformly applied mandate, clearly.)

The Post wrote a nice article about the very last run of the Circulator, which took place just hours before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.

So for better or worse, the Circulator is dead.

So let’s talk about Metrobus.

The first thing to note is that the city worked with WMATA to modify some routes to somewhat recreate the Georgetown-Union Station Circulator bus. They did that by merging the 31 and 33 routes and extending them all the way to Union Station. That’s helpful, no doubt, but the problem is that it doesn’t really address the biggest impact that the elimination of the Circulator will have on Georgetown: bus frequency.

The reality for most Georgetowners, I suspect, is that they view the Circulator and the 30 series largely interchangeable. At least, I know I did. Between Georgetown and downtown, they both got you roughly to the same place. So you had more frequent buses to choose from. While the modified 30 series will now get you all the way to Union Station in a way they didn’t used to, they will come no more frequently. So you will inevitably have to wait longer for a bus and the buses that do come will likely be more crowded. That is just the sad reality of a world without the Circulator. (And again, something to remember when visions of NFL stadiums start dancing in our elected officials heads…)

But those changes will pale in comparison to the much more significant changes on tap for every single Metrobus route in the system.

In short: every single Metrobus route is going to be changed and renamed by the end of this year.

Last year I wrote a deep dive into all the proposed changes. And I recommend you read those two links if you are a regular bus rider. But I’ll try to sum up the changes here:

• The D2 will now be the D96 and will extend all the way between Bethesda and Foggy Bottom

• The D6 will now be the D94 and will only go as far as Chinatown, not Union Station

• The G2 will now be the D92 and it will travel down Q St. east of 35th St. It will now go to Union Station not Le Droit Park

• The 30 series will now be the D82 and will only reach McPherson Square, not Union Station as the Circulator-replacement route does

• The 38B will become the A58 and instead of ending at Balston it will go all the way to Seven Corners

• There will be a new route called C85 that will go down M St. out to the Palisades. It will then double back to Burleith and up through Ward 3.

As with all big changes to bus routes, there will be “winners” and “losers”. For instance, if you live in the middle of the east village and like catching the G2, you might now face a longer walk to and from the bus stop. But there will be a lot more bus options to get up to neighborhoods north and west of Georgetown.

But above all else, the changes will mean learning completely new names and routes, which will be a challenge to even the most seasoned bus riders. WMATA has not given a clear schedule for when the changes will take place, but has stated that they will begin this summer. I suspect the changes will be rolled out over time, so stay tuned!