10th Street between F and E is more or less used solely for loading and unloading tourist buses and the Old Town Trolley. Will they make the asshole tourists move to L'Enfant too? Of course not. But they are far more annoying to walking around downtown than the nice and considerate users of the Chinatown buses.

My experience has been that the intercity buses don't get in the way very much. And there are lots of ways to acomodate them, as you have suggested.

What about using the convention center throughway? What about loading in front of the Mariot in Woodley Park? What about building bus pick up space into the new complex going into the old convention center space? Better yet, how about picking up in or around the old convention center complex?

by Eric on Jun 18, 2008 2:43 pm  

Yeah!

This is such a horrible idea. One of the great things about these buses is their convenience. And forcing them to move to the least populated, least people-friendly part of the city is just MEAN. I care less about the inconvenience for the bus operators and more about the thousands of citizens that rely on this travel option.

Please tell me someone will let us know when DDOT has a hearing on this so we can go complain about their stupidity in person. I'm sure it'd be quite easy to get more opponents than supporters to show up.

by Ryan on Jun 18, 2008 3:00 pm  

The traffic complaints about Chinatown buses: private commercial vehicles blocking travel lanes or parking in a no-parking zone, is also true of UPS and FedEx trucks. So for their next step, perhaps DDOT could require that all FedEX or UPS deliveries be made at L'Enfant Plaza as well.

Has NYC's DOT done anything to restrict these buses?

I do wonder if this is really the result of complaints by Greyhound--not that I imagine Greyhound has all that much political clout. I have some sympathy for Greyhound, because it costs money to operate a station, and you need a station if you're going to run a network and have connections and so forth. But maybe that's just the outdated way of thinking about intercity bus transport.

In any case, the bus operators need to make little flyers which explain the situation, with city council contact info on them (not sure who to contact for VA/MD residents), and hand them out to every passenger. Heck, passengers could call from their cell phones as they wait for the bus to load.

by thm on Jun 18, 2008 3:22 pm  

While its good for the neighborhood to have a bus come through. L'enfant is certainly easy to get to.

by Kiran on Jun 18, 2008 3:42 pm  

Nothing there? Phhht. I guess you never heard of Au Bon Pain, or the Mc Donald’s about 30ft from the stop, or Frank n’stein, or even the 5 Start restaurant known as Oh's and Oh's cafeteria...All fine establishments, and all open from 6 till 5pm Mon-Fri!!!

Honestly, maybe the stop will help boost that fledgling underground mall or spur the developer to finally redevelop the whole plaza.

by RJ on Jun 18, 2008 3:51 pm  

Of late it seems like there is a new DC to NY bus company sprouting up every couple months. The consumer demand has clearly been there - so that's great. But with this additional volume these buses are becoming a nuisance for residents of Chinatown. Exhaust from excessive idling, double parking, blocking alleys/garage doors of condos and businesses.

I'm fine with suggestions of taking away a curb parking or a traffic lane. But you would not do that everytime a new bus company wants to sprout up - would you? I'd suggest picking a few strategic places in neighborhoods like Chinatown, Foggy and Dupont and setting up loading stations. Auction those off to the bus companies. The rest of the volume has to go to L'Enfant or Union Station.

Moving cars out of the way for buses is excellent if the buses are moving. But moving cars out of way for double parked idling buses is dysfunctional to me.

by Cascades on Jun 18, 2008 4:37 pm  

I'm not against a centralized location for the intercity buses. It IS a little weird and confusing that the location for each one is slightly different. I always have to double check to see if I'm going to 6th & H, 7th & H, 11th & H, 14th & L etc. But L'Enfant plaza makes no sense. No one lives there; its just government workers. At least all the other stops are in NW!

by Chris Loos on Jun 18, 2008 4:52 pm  

ALL of us (the public) own these streets. Currently the private bus operators mentioned are taking up space allocated to all, and claiming it temporarily for their private use. DDOT most certainly has the authority to tell these buses where they can and cannot park. It has nothing to do with moving more commuters in and out of the city. It has everything to do with improving the operation of the overall street network, including transit buses.

The author of the post misses an important point here: often these buses block the public's access to Metrobuses traveling in the corridors.

Also, how is this any different than New York does by requiring dropoffs, pickups, and layovers only at designated locations? New York isn't perfect, but they at least have an overall plan. As it is, DC doesn't have a plan at all and they are trying to create one.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/ferrybus/charterbus.shtml

by PublicStreets on Jun 18, 2008 5:59 pm  

I'd rather have a central location but Le'Enfant Plaza shouldnt be it, Maybe getting rid of parking around one of the parks in NW that is near a metro station and have the buses go there.

The buses do doublepark and park in metro and no parking zones, and slow down traffic because of the 3 above all of which they should not be doing. Why should we conform to tourist and not residents.

Le'Enfant Plaza is more convient if your traveling by metro on the green line from SE or SE Maryland, orange line , yellow from VA and blue line. People still go to the greyhound station and nothing is around there so what exactly is the difference.

by kk on Jun 18, 2008 6:12 pm  

The best way to solve this is with a market system. Curb space has value. If you want to put your car there, you should pay a market rate for it. Downtown areas will cost more; low-density outer areas less. If a bus company wants to establish a loading zone, it can rent that block of curb space at whatever rate the cars would pay to park there. If the bus company wants a cheap loading zone, they can rent a less high-demand block of curb space.

In the meantime, let's do what Cascades suggests. Establish a few loading zones around the city and auction them off. If a bus company doesn't use one all the time, it can pay another company to use its space some of the time, like airlines sometimes do with their gates. Put one down in the L'Enfant Plaza area for cheap, and make ones in busier Northwest neighborhoods more.

RJ has a good point about the buses creating activity around L'Enfant. If DC had a plan to redevelop L'Enfant into a mixed use area or even an evening and weekend destination, maybe putting the buses there would make some sense. But I'd still let companies pay to rent a loading zone elsewhere.

by David Alpert on Jun 18, 2008 6:56 pm  

By the way, I think Bolt Bus is operated by Grayhound. It doesn't say anything on the website, but I recall seeing that written on the side of the bus.

by Eric on Jun 18, 2008 8:44 pm  

If busses (or any transit, for that matter) are picking up and dropping off wherever they please, then in my opinion the city is not regulating them. I agree with curb rental, however I think that L'Enfant is ideal if done right.

1) Four Metro lines go through there, making it a good spot for a centralized inter-city bus depot.

2) It sits right atop the freeway. My belief is that interstate busses should be on interstate freeways if they are present.

3) Pedestrians on the street in that part of SW during non-business hours might encourage a little bit of life to the Soviet-era streetscapes of that neighborhood.

4) If Greyhound, AMTRAK, and other larger intercity transit carriers are required to board and de-board passengers in a designated, safe, legal, regulated location, I feel these busses ought to be subject to the same regulation.

by David Murphy on Jun 18, 2008 11:00 pm  

Yeah, I don't see what the big deal is. Most people who take these buses are doing so b/c of the convenient price and ease of use. They don't care where the stop is. If you want to use the bus loading/unloading areas to spur some activity in the area, that's fine, do it at L'Enfant, which desperately needs it. NYC has a lot of buses that drop off in the MSG area and Chinatown and they do have some benefit there since there are things to do. So L'Enfant just needs better development. I know everything is supposed to be urban and pedestrian friendly, but criticizing this is being a bit chinchy IMO. It's reasonable and makes sense to put the buses in L'Enfant w/ the reasons mentioned earlier such as proximity to metro and the interstate highways.

by Vik on Jun 19, 2008 7:53 am  

From my post on this subject:

The worst part about this proposal is that we should know better. The city can’t wait to get Greyhound out of its terminal in NoMa and into Union Station because everybody knows the back side of NoMa isn’t a central or lively enough place for a major intercity transportation depot. Why duplicate a situation we already know is undesirable?

by BeyondDC on Jun 19, 2008 11:07 am  

I'm thinking empty desolate L'Enfant Plaza is the last place in the world that I would want to be dropped off at coming in late on a Sunday night. Wonderful that all these things are open Mon-Fri 9-6 - terrible all the rest of the time.

by ethel-to-tilly on Jun 19, 2008 11:20 am  

Daytime hours it's a fine location. Plus it takes bus traffic out of the city center - SE/SW Fwy to Anacostia Fwy/Kenilworth & out: not a bad route at all.

How about letting them pick up/drop off where they will on weekends, before morning rush hour & after evening rush hour - that'd alleviate any safety concerns while still keeping them off city streets during the busiest times - that or they can pay to work out of the Union Stn bus deck.

There are reasonable compromises out there.

by Jad on Jun 19, 2008 11:51 am  

Vik said: "Yeah, I don't see what the big deal is. Most people who take these buses are doing so b/c of the convenient price and ease of use. They don't care where the stop is."

Well, Vik, unlike you I actually use the bus, and you are correct that price and convenience are important to me. But part of the convenience is being dropped off in the city, not the armpit of the city. In fact, my biggest concern is not price or safety --it's where the bus is dropping me off, and if I can get a cup of coffee there, and if I'll be mugged in some abandoned part of town or not. Please let's all be clear --getting the bus in Bethesda and/or Rockville is safer and easier for people living in NW than catching the bus several blocks from the L'Enfant Metro.

As for Jad's comment that "How about letting them pick up/drop off where they will on weekends, before morning rush hour & after evening rush hour - that'd alleviate any safety concerns while still keeping them off city streets during the busiest times - that or they can pay to work out of the Union Stn bus deck."

Again, let's leave this to the people who actually use the buses or are actually impacted by the buses, and Jad seems to be neither. Now, the buses leave at all times of the day. Preventing buses from 7:30am until 6:30pm is about as logical as preventing passenger planes from flying during those times. Sure, the skies aren't crowded, BUT WHO THE F--- wants or needs a plane at those HOURS?

A reasonable compromise, as Jad suggests, would be to build reliable and cheap intercity train travel, but we're dreaming there. See all my fellow bus rider in Bethesda!

by Bud on Jun 22, 2008 12:38 am  

@Bud - Jad's suggestion clearly wasn't to keep all buses off the roads between 7:30 and 6:30pm. His idea was that the city relax the restrictions during non-peak hours so that these buses could use areas other than L'Enfant at certain times of the day. You are so eager to jump down anyone's throat on this issue that you are not carefully considering others ideas but simply hurrying to thrash them.

by Jason on Jun 22, 2008 1:23 am  

I do remember arriving at the Greyhound terminal after taking a night bus from NYC - this was 15 years ago, years before "NoMA." Since then I always worked my schedule to arrive during the day or paid more for Amtrak. Nowadays I'm a big fan of Amtrak. The terminal's still an unpleasant enough entrance to the city, though it doesn't feel actively unsafe, as it did then after dark.

Moving Greyhound to Union Stn as part of an intermodal hub makes great sense, and is a far more welcoming way to bring visitors into the city. As for the smaller operators, it's reasonable to weigh the convenience for bus users against the inconvenience for everyone else.

I also worry about how BoltBus etc. will cut into Amtrak, with Amtrak's fixed, major infrastructure costs. Come to think of it, this conversation has some elements of BRT vs. Metrorail....

Questions I'm not qualified to answer:

Should bus operators have to rent a terminal space or use another specified space, like L'Enfant?

Why - in order to provide a certain level of user/DC visitor experience?

In order to minimize surface street traffic?

What should our long-term goals for an inter-city bus network be?

Supplement to inter-city rail? Competitor? Flexible service to under-served areas?

by Jad on Jun 23, 2008 12:27 pm  

Jad: Amtrak is doing fine—train prices are so high right now, and they're filling all their trains. I'd love to have significantly more capacity on Amtrak, but there's clearly not enough to haul people at low prices.

by David Alpert on Jun 23, 2008 1:40 pm  

Check - that jibes with my experience. Bus service doesn't displace train service - different price point & experience.

So does bus svc displace car trips (a good thing), or create new trips? Even if it creates new trips, that's not a bad thing from a city visitorship perspective, and there's an argument to be made on that basis. But from DDOT's perspective, it's your LOS issue. The next thread makes the right point - that this needs to be studied.

by Jad on Jun 23, 2008 2:00 pm