Metro's New Better Bus Network
For me, it's definitely an improvement.
I first moved to the Washington, DC area in 1980. It was my first real experience of being out on my own. I grew up in a typical suburban housing development. I had lived in college dorms and a group house when I was in college, but I moved back in with my parents during the two years that I studied drums in New York after quitting college.
I joined the Air Force music program in 1977, after spending most of those two years studying with a private teacher in New York City. During that time, I fell in love with the city. After my lessons, I would get on the NYC subway, and explore different parts of the city. New York City, and not just the Manhattan borough, is made of up many ethnic and racial neighborhoods. I used to love eating in the Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Then there was a certain Irish bar, that was my favorite. A glass of draft beer, was twenty-five cents. Yes, you could find little hole in the wall places like that, if you looked.
My first two years in the military, I lived in the barracks at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Because it was male only quarters, and we were all musicians, our barracks rooms also became our practice rooms. Walk down the hall, and it sounded like the old practice rooms from when I was in college. The main difference was the pool table and the day room, where everyone drank beer and watched sports on TV.
One advantage that being stationed with the 590th Air Force Band in New Jersey, was it was still close enough to New York City, that I used to visit there frequently. Most of the time, I would drive to Trenton, and take either the Amtrak or NJTransit train into the city. You could get a train from Penn Station to Trenton at 4 am. There was a bus that ran from McGuire to the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC. That was another transportation option. I loved New York City. I even dated a girl who lived on the Upper East Side for a while. I was amazed how small her apartment was.
My original plan was to spend 4 years getting playing experience with a military band, and then moving to New York and having a career as a freelance musician in the city. My plans changed when there was an opening with one of the drummer positions in the Air Force’s premier band in Washington, DC. I never made it to New York. However, settling for Washington, DC, the nation’s capital wasn’t a bad alternative.
I auditioned for, and won a job with one of the small combos with the DC band. One of the “perks” of being in the DC band was receiving the Basic Allowance For Housing (BAH). Normally, enlisted personnel don’t qualify for BAH until they reach the rank of E-7 (Master Sergeant), or they are married and/or have other dependents: divorced with children or caring for elderly parents who qualify as your dependents. If not, you live in the barracks like I did when I was stationed with the McGuire Air Force Base band. I was finally going to be on my own, with my own place.
Through another member of the band, I was able to locate a 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment in a nice “emerging” residential section of town for a very reasonable price. The rent was $171 dollars a month, including utilities. The second year I was there, the rent increased to $183 dollars a month. The average rent in the DC area for a 1 bedroom apartment, was around $300 a month. This place was a well kept secret in the housing market. It was in an old building with iron radiators. In the summer, you could run one 5000 BTU or less window air conditioner, and pay an extra $25 a month fee, for the extra electricity that the AC unit used.
The apartment was two blocks from a Metro station and two blocks from a major late night/early morning bus line. Just about everything I needed was within walking distance. Even getting to work at Bolling Air Force Base, could be accomplished by public transportation, in a reasonable amount of time. Why drive? I think that I put about 4000 miles on my car, the entire 2 years that I lived in that apartment in DC.
My first experience actually being on my own, was living in an urban area. I fell in love with the conveniences of the city. It was especially nice living close to the Metro. When I was studying in New York, I used to use the subway all the time, and I used to get there by either commuter rail, or Amtrak. Driving and parking in New York was, and still is, an expensive pain in the ass. Now with the new congestion pricing for driving south of 60th street, it’s an even more expensive pain in the ass.
When I was a kid and we were visiting relatives in the Boston suburbs, my father and I would occasionally spend a father and son day in Boston. We would drive to one of the MBTA stations, park the car, and spend the day riding the subway and going to the aquarium and the various museums. Once when I was quite young, we also went to the Boston Common and the Public Gardens, and rode on the swan boats. I had read about them in the book, “Make Way For Ducklings.” I think I was in either first or second grade at the time. Sometimes when we were staying with relatives in Winchester, MA, we would walk the half a mile down to the train station, and take the Boston And Maine Railroad Budd car into North Station, and then use the MBTA subway system to get around.
When I moved to DC, most of the time I would use Metrorail to get around. I didn’t really explore the bus routes, except for the ones that I needed to use when the rail system was shut down, or hadn’t yet been built.
Back then, the Red Line ran from Silver Spring to Dupont Circle, the Orange Line ran from Ballston to New Carrolton, and the Blue Line only ran from Stadium Armory to National Airport. The other lines and stations, were still in their planning stages.
I loved living near a subway stop. If done right, public transportation can be a huge convenience. If you live in a city or even an urbanized suburb with good public transportation, and you don’t need a vehicle for your work, i.e. plumber, electrician, contractor, home computer repair, etc., why do you even want to own a car and take on that expense? On the 5 or 6 days a year when you really do need one, or you are out of town on vacation in the country, you rent one. There are the standard rental companies, and then there are Zip Car and Free To Go, in the city, which rent cars by the hour, or even by the minute.
Keeping a car on the road is expensive. There are claims that it costs about $10,000 a year to keep a car on the road, when you add in the cost of fuel, routine maintenance, insurance, registration, and repairs. That’s another reason why using the bus is a good thing. You save a lot of money
Right now, my wife and I own two cars. Once the new bus network starts up at the end of June, we can go down to one car if need be. I’m not planning on getting rid of one of them, but if one dies, it’s not going to be replaced. That will save us a lot of money. From my house to most of my destinations, the Lidl grocery store, Trader Joe’s, and my parish church, St. Anthony Of Padua, will finally be within convenient reach, by public transportation. I guess I’m one of the few urban conservatives out there, and being an urbanist, I love density, and I like riding public transportation.
In 1982 I got married and moved to the suburbs, buying a house in College Park, MD. My wife and I had considered a house in my old DC neighborhood, but my wife had a daughter by a previous marriage, and she didn’t want to send her to DC’s public schools. We couldn’t afford private school.
We settled in College Park, MD, which is in Prince George’s County. Back then, the schools were ok, not great, but ok. It was the best we could do on our incomes. Even though it was a college town with Maryland’s flagship state university, the City Of College Park, was still a working class, Southern redneck town. There were a lot of town versus gown issues. Fortunately, it’s no longer redneck, but it is still mostly a working class city. Most of my neighbors are contractors. However, in the driveways sitting next to the Ford F-150, a lot of the time is a Prius or another brand of hybrid. There are a few Teslas now too.
When we moved to College Park there was no Metrorail at the time, there was only bus service to the Rhode Island Avenue Metrorail station and the MARC Train, which wasn’t all that reliable. Because CSX owns the tracks, passenger trains get sidelined frequently, to let a freight train pass. That would mean, you would be late for work.
We lived here for many years before the Green Line opened from Greenbelt through downtown DC and into the lower part of the county. Once the Green line opened, my wife used to walk the 1 1/2 miles to the back entrance and tunnel to the Greenbelt Metrorail station on her way to work, and walk the 1 1/2 miles home in the evening. She liked it, because it gave her a chance to get some exercise.
After I retired from the Air Force, I had a teaching job at a private school in Potomac. I used to take the bus to the Metro, ride the Green Line to Fort Totten, and then a bus to the school. I could have driven, but I believe in using public transportation whenever possible. Plus, when given the choice between driving and trying to find a place to park, and using public transportation, and not having to find a place to park, I’m going to use public transportation.
There was also a darker reason why I used to take the T2 bus to the school. I am handicapped and have handicapped license plates. If I drove to the school, all the handicapped parking spaces, were taken by people that were not handicapped. Being mostly new money, their sense of entitlement meant that the rules didn’t apply to them. They also knew that the school was private property, and the police would have to be invited onto the campus in order to issue parking tickets. The parents who were parking in the handicapped spaces, knew that they headmaster of the school was not about to contact the Montgomery County Police, and ask them to come on campus, and ticket and/or ticket and tow, the non-handicapped cars parked in the handicapped spaces.
I mentioned the problem to the head of the campus security office. He was a retired cop himself. He said that they knew about the problem, but there was nothing they could do. Ticketing those cars, might mean less money going to the school’s alumni associations, and they couldn’t afford to do anything that might affect the endowment money stream. I’d just have to park down by the ball fields like everyone else, and walk the 3/4 of a mile back to the music building. It was a shorter walk from the bus stop right outside the school’s gate than the walk from the football field. I’m glad that that is now all in the past.
With the new Better Bus Network, the bus service to my part of College Park, will now be convenient. I’ll be using it all the time. There will finally be bus service to get me home on Sunday, after 7:30 pm. I don’t get out of church until around 8ish. I’m in no shape to walk the 1 1/2 miles from the closest Metro station to my house, with the last 3/4 of a mile being uphill. 20 plus years ago when my wife used to do it, she was 20 years younger. Same with me.
Buses are the backbone of any public transportation system. Metro even has some major trunk line buses, that run 24/7, connecting all 8 wards. The idea is that someone who lives in Anacostia, and works as a bartender in Silver Spring, will be able to get home in the middle of the night, when their shift ends, without having to own a car. I know it’s a pipe dream, but I would love to see 24/7 bus service over the entire network, and maybe if more people created a demand for it, it would happen. However, I’m not holding my breath.
While we still have the 9-5 commuters from the suburbs into DC, due to the government’s back to the office edict, we are pretty much a 24/7 economy. Those office workers who work traditional business hours, don’t see the cleaning crews that clean their offices at one o-clock in the morning. Those cleaning crews have to get home after their shifts. Most of them are the working poor, and they can’t afford to own a car. Many of them also don’t speak English.
Montgomery County, MD, is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its RideOn bus service. They are in the process of revamping that service, so that it compliments Metro’s new bus network. I used to use RideOn frequently, when I used to spend more time in the Rockville, MD, area. My only complaints were the frequency of service, and the early ending hours.
Prince George’s County, where I live, has a county bus system called The Bus. The route near my house, the number 17, is being discontinued. All the routes are being either discontinued, or rerouted due to Metro’s new bus network. It’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes for riders to get used to the new system. The buses that I will be using on a regular basis, will no longer go to the College Park Metro station. The P1X express route, which will be my new bus of choice, will go from Ikea to the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station, and the M44, which stops at the same stops closest to my house, will go to the Hyattsville Crossing Metro station. The new M42, which replaces the old 83 bus, will still go to College Park. If I’m using Metrorail, I’ll have to plan my trips around which bus to take, that will get me home. At least now, I’ll have some viable options. I’ll be able to get home by public transportation, after the 6:30 pm Mass, at St. Anthony’s.
Historically, Prince George’s County has not been all that receptive to urbanist development, as well as public transportation. Riding the bus is for “those people.” My area of College Park is still very working class, and the working classes drive. A lot of it is a cultural thing, as I said above. Buses are for “those people.” PG County, as it is called, still has a lot of people that would be classified as rednecks. Driving instead of taking public transportation, is still a cultural thing for those folks. Driving puts you one notch above on society’s totem pole.
I know folks that will drive to a Nationals’ game and pay $40 to park, rather than taking the Metro Green Line, which has a stop about a block from the stadium’s center field entrance. If they are going to a post-season championship game, they will fork over the now $100 to park their car, rather than paying $5.25 to park at the Metro, and then pay around $7 for the round trip, to and from the ball park.
The demographics of Prince George’s County are changing. What I’m seeing in the 42 years that I’ve lived here, my neighborhood’s demographics has definitely changed. When my wife and I moved into our house, the neighborhood was about 90% working class Whites. Now, it’s about 20% Whites. Most of my neighbors are now either Black or Hispanic. They were forced out of DC as Columbia Heights and Shaw gentrified. They could no longer afford the housing costs and taxes on working class incomes. About that time, a lot of the houses in my area came on the market, because the owners retired and moved out of the area. Those folks from DC that were displaced, were able to purchase a home that they could afford.
At the same time, a lot of lower income level professionals, like teachers and social workers, were looking for affordable housing too. They were able to purchase houses that were on the market for about $250,000 to $300,000, when the interest rates on mortgages were around 3-4%. Our little niche of suburbia, has become quite diverse. Are there any problems? Not that I can see, or have experienced. There are a lot of people at the the bus stops now. With the new system, I have a feeling that there will be a lot more. A lot of folks in this area, are becoming car-optional. They may own a car or two, but if they are going downtown, or even to the center of College Park, or the university, they are riding the bus.
The key to getting bus ridership, is the bus schedule. People are not going to ride the bus, if it only comes once an hour. As you are coming up the steps at the Metro station, and you see your bus pulling out of the station area, and realizing that you now have to wait an hour for the next one, is not going to encourage ridership.
If I’m going to St. Anthony’s, it will be a little bit longer than driving, 40 minutes instead of about 35. However, I can sit and read, and don’t have to worry about the crazy idiots that drive on our streets.
Going to the grocery store? It’s about the same time as driving, but I won’t have to find a parking space when I get there. Coming home, there is a bus stop right next to the grocery store. The stop near my house, is less than 2 blocks. It’s an easy walk with your grocery bags in a rolling cart.
This is the first complete overhaul of the DC areas bus system. It’s been needed for a long time. The culture is changing. People in PG County, are becoming more receptive to using public transportation. Yes, some folks will still insisting on driving. If that’s their choice, fine. I’m glad that I’ll now have a convenient choice of being able to leave the car at home. I’m glad that my suburb is becoming more urbanized. The older I get, the more I like the idea of walkability, and having public transportation to enhance that walkability. I’m a conservative that likes density. I have no desire to move out to the country, have to drive everywhere, and have nothing to do but sit at home.
If you want to live “some place nice,” where you have a 2000 square foot home on 2 1/2 acers to mow, and the only thing to do at night, unless you drive somewhere, is plop your ass in front of your 90 inch TV, that’s your business. I’m not into that. I’d also rather not spend $4.50 a gallon for premium gas, when I can pay $1.25 to take the bus. And…someone else it driving, while I catch up on my reading, as I head to my destination. I’ll also be using a lot less cuss words describing the other drivers on the road.
Metro’s new Better Bus Network has a lot of potential. The bus system has needed a complete overhaul, especially in the suburbs, for years. I’m glad it’s finally happening.