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I rode the Union Station - Navy Yard bus yesterday. After scratching my head at the old N22 stop like Ryan did for a while, I found two buses in the bay behind the train station (I am lucky enough to know where and what this bay is - many of the people at whom this bus service is directed will not be able to find this bay easily). The displays were not on, and when one of them did come on it said "Special". There were five or six circulator "ground crew" in the bus bay, and a line of puzzled looking tourists asking them for help. I asked the driver of the "Special" bus if it was the new N22, and he said it was. I got on board, and eventually, after taking one more passenger, we squeezed our way out of the bus bay, and I got off on 8th St. I don't know if the trip was any quicker than it used to be on the N22 - it didn't seem like it. Having the circulators go to the bus bay seems like a good idea, except that there needs to be clear signage directing people there, it took several minutes for the bus to wend its way back out again, and two identical buses side-by-side with their displays off, or ambiguously declaring "special" was confusing. It was definitely not quicker than it would have been for me to take Metrorail. The main reason for taking this new circulator route, as far as I can see, is the same as the reason I sometimes used to take the N22: no one uses it, so it's a clean and quiet alternative to the train. The reason not to take it is the same as the N22 as well: taking waiting into account, you can probably walk to most of the places it goes in about the same amount of time the bus would take to get you there.

by lucre on Mar 31, 2009 10:09 am • link • report