GUTS is also used by people who have doctors at GU hospital. And when I was hobbling around with a walking cast, I appreciated having a bus that stopped close to the hospital entrance.

by Elizabeth on Jun 18, 2009 2:46 pm • link • report

David, that's a good idea. From a detached, analytical perspective, that makes sense.

There is only one problem that I can see. Most GU undergrads and grad students are from far, far away. They don't really know the city at all. WMATA buses are far harder to get the hang of than a GUTS bus and the Metro. The GUTS bus inintentionally doubles in a second role as a security blanket for them that serves as a gateway to the rest of the city.

I'm just remembering my experience when I was at UMD. I had no problem using Shuttle UM (UMD shuttle buses, counterpart to GUTS) and taking the Green Line. I was mystified by WMATA/county buses until many years later after I had moved to Wheaton and wanted to go to Bethesda during the day and not pay an arm and a leg for parking. My friends who went to Georgetown (and GW and Catholic) say basically the same thing: trains and campus shuttles good, WMATA buses are confusing.

That being said, the campus staff would be indifferent to whether it's a GUTS bus or a WMATA bus.

This gets back to the larger psychology about why trains exceed their ridership projections in the New Starts program and buses/BRT never do. However, that's another topic.

by Cavan on Jun 18, 2009 2:54 pm • link • report

I've often wondered why you can't combine the blue blue and GUTS. I think part of the problem is that GUTS are giant interstate coaches that are not suited for city streets. Running smaller urban buses could allow for more frequent buses and also alleviate the ANC concerns.

With Smartcard systems, this is a real possibility. Blue Bus doesn't take smart cards but that would be a great investment. Before, with cash/tokens/paper it wouldn't work out.

In europe, buses are for the middle class and metros for the poor. Middle class people like the views. Streets are in better condition and the ride is much easier. Biggest barrier to more middle class bus riders in DC is unsanitary buses, homeless people, and mexicans.

by charlie on Jun 18, 2009 3:03 pm • link • report

@ Charlie

The biggest barrier for middle class bus riders in DC is Mexicans what the f**k is that supposed to mean

by Kk on Jun 18, 2009 3:19 pm • link • report

Ron's not an anti-transit guy. He helped me get the ANC to pass a resolution to save the D2 route. Plus he's shown a strong interest in the Circulator in the past (I believe he worked to keep it going all the way up to Whitehaven when DDOT was considering truncating the route, but I'm not sure about that). That said, he has a very personal objection to the traffic on Reservoir (he lives at 34th and Reservoir) and he appears willing to use the 10 year plan process to satisfy those objections.

It's worth noting that DDOT has already looked into this and come down on Ron's side. In the Georgetown Transportation Study from last year, it recommended that all Guts buses use the Canal St. exit.

So while I personally would love more metrobuses on Q st (particularly on the weekend) and support making the GUTS bus as attractive as possible, it looks like the ANC has GU over the barrel on this one (they are particularly concerned about getting approval for a new hospital), and since the commissioners generally defer to each other, it seems that Ron's views will be the ANC's on this topic. And that's the long and the short of it...

By the way, WMATA is looking into the D Series right now. From my participation I can tell you that it doesn't seem that G.U. is engaged in the process, nor has the study spent a ton of time thinking about Georgetown residents generally (it's more focused on the Palisades). It doesn't help that I've been the only Georgetown resident attending the meetings.

And since when has Montrose Park been called Crabapple Hill? There aren't even any crabapple trees there...

by The Georgetown Metropolitan on Jun 18, 2009 3:27 pm • link • report

No, no, no, no. If private automobiles are allowed to drive down Q Street, then a private institution has an equal right to drive its buses down Q Street, too. This is not a subject for compromise. If Ron Lewis wants to ban GUTS, his only option is to convince City Council to close Q Street to all motorized traffic, regardless of the driver's identity.

You also have a serious factual error in your article. You say: "Likewise, a person going from Dupont Circle to Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown can't take the GUTS bus, since it doesn't stop on Wisconsin and they're not allowed to ride GUTS." Not true. My wife and I are neither students nor employees, and yet we take the GUTS bus to the hospital all the time.

by tom veil on Jun 18, 2009 3:55 pm • link • report

You're allowed to ride GUTS if you are going to Georgetown University. My example was about someone who's not actually going to the University.

by David Alpert on Jun 18, 2009 3:57 pm • link • report

Ron is thoughtful when engaging transit issues and is not anti-transit - despite what some GTown students have written online - and we are fortunate to have him on the ANC.

My personal opinion is that a decision to live in an urban neighborhood is a decision to live with residential transit. In fact, public transportation on our residential streets is a central part of the historical Georgetown village that it would be ahistorical to do away with.

I believe that in proposing no buses on Georgetown residential roads, Ron and others are expressing a deeper concern that I in fact agree with - residential buses reduce the walkeability and liveability of our neighborhoods when they are old, poor quality and loud. We all miss the historic O Street trolleys, so the issue is not really residential transit.

Making the GUTS Dupont route a D9 Express Route would actually (A) reduce the total number of buses (because non-students would no longer create artificial demand for D buses for being prohibited from riding the plentiful GUTS buses) while (B) converting the terribly loud and clunky GUTS buses into the new, quieter WMATA buses used for new bus lines. And it would continue to reduce student car use (occasionally while intoxicated) through the neighborhood, which everyone supports.

by Ken Archer on Jun 18, 2009 4:14 pm • link • report

This isn't that uncommon and I'm not sure why more DC-area schools don't do it (fear of the big bad city?). Where I went to school, the university levies a transportation fee per credit-hour, which it then disburses to the city bus system. Students use the city buses for free and the city manages a separately-numbered (but also free) bus system for routes around campus. Many students still find the general city buses confusing, but the campus routes are easy to understand.

It seems to make more sense to design a route that would be as easy to use as GUTS but be managed by WMATA and open to the public. Fewer duplicative buses running = less traffic, less pollution, less cost, more buses available to the general public. They could still brand the bus as GUTS or similar (the way the 38B is the "Orange Line with a View") and the information the university currently distributes about GUTS could be changed to refer to the new route. GU would subsidize the route and thus have significant say over it (since if they don't get their way, they'll cancel the subsidy and run a separate GUTS again). So if GU wanted less frequent stops, voila, it's an express route. GU students/staff could ride the route for free either by showing their university ID, or GU could provide a SmarTrip for each student and WMATA could (theoretically) set it up so trips on that route were never charged to accounts linked to current GU students/staff. I don't see who loses in this equation (other than the current GUTS staff, who could hopefully be transfered to other positions in GU/WMATA).

by Gavin Baker on Jun 18, 2009 4:19 pm • link • report

To the point, the Universtiy of Pittsburgh student ID allows students to ride every bus in Pittsburgh free 365 days of the year. While the campus provides a short, circular route within campus, among students it is considered a significant beenfit to be able to use the PAT system free, and they do so heavily to get to shopping, dining, internships, etc. all over Pittsburgh.

by Eric Menzer on Jun 18, 2009 4:25 pm • link • report

Eric: as someone who's from Pittsburgh, let me add that I've never heard of any Pittsburgh politician trying to shut down Pitt's University Shuttles, even though there are 11 of them and they sometimes run on narrow streets in historic neighborhoods.

by tom veil on Jun 18, 2009 4:36 pm • link • report

I agree with the private and public bus inefficiency idea, but for these Georgetown residents to have the gall to suggest that they somehow deserve not to have PUBLIC STREETS USED BY THE PUBLIC because they are rich is absurd.

Plus, taking away the GUTS bus will just cause more people to drive to Georgetown. I'd love to see how residents react when, instead of a shuttle bus, they get traffic jams all day on their quiet, leafy, wish this was a gated community, streets.

As we all know, the bus system just isn't reliable enough to get somewhere on time, especially if it goes down M street which is a nightmare at all times of the day. When I take the circulator there, I get out at the first stop in Georgetown and walk to Wisconsin or wherever because it's so much faster than being stuck in traffic on the bus, even when it's not rush hour.

by tim on Jun 18, 2009 5:03 pm • link • report

In europe, buses are for the middle class and metros for the poor. Middle class people like the views. Streets are in better condition and the ride is much easier. Biggest barrier to more middle class bus riders in DC is unsanitary buses, homeless people, and mexicans.

by charlie on Jun 18, 2009 3:03 pm

Not sure about any of this. Buses are NOT unsanitary. Far from it. Plenty of middle class people ride the metro in Europe. Not too many homeless ride the bus because it costs $. There is not a large population of Mexicans in Washington. And besides, your observation is nasty and horrible, and probably should be taken down.

by Jazzy on Jun 18, 2009 9:33 pm • link • report

I have to say, I think this a very creative solution that makes a lot of sense. I still maintain that GU has the right to use public roads (unless the ANC is willing to ban all vehicular traffic, or impose a weight limit that would equally apply to WMATA), and it's ridiculous that the ANC would think otherwise.

That being sad, given the neighbors seem so opposed to letting the university use public streets, this proposal solves most major issues. It basically transfers funds and branding to WMATA, but keeps the same level of service (if an express D9 is included), and allows the neighbors to use it (not, for the record, that they aren't already). There would of course, be implementation issues, but in theory it makes sense (My hope would be that the change could be combined with the SmartTrip-GOCard integration.)

Cavan's point is interesting, and I agree it will be an issue. But the route is really used more by grad students and medical staff anyway. Students who need to use it to get to an internship on a regular basis will quickly learn. But there will be a real sacrifice in occasional riders.

Extremely minor question: how will this work with/who will pay for bus-rail and rail-bus transfers?

by Doug on Jun 18, 2009 11:11 pm • link • report

David...your map is a wee-bit inaccurate. The GUTS bus that travels Mass. Avenue does not take Observatory or Calvert.

It goes further up Mass., onto Garfield - at St. Albans - and Wisconsin. (The same in reverse.)

Now that is circuitous! And wasteful. Cathedral Heights should not have GUTS buses anywhere near it, given its location vis a vis DuPont and campus.

Moreover, this adds the the several 30-bus lines that make Wisconsin one of the most-traveled bus streets in the city.

GUTS buses also have a distinct sound to them as they struggle and belch up the Wisconsin Avenue hill.

Georgetown, please get off Mount Alban.

by Cathedral Heights on Jun 19, 2009 1:16 am • link • report

Interesting idea -- as a GUTS bus user, I find the alternate route around the Naval Observatory/Casa Biden very frustrating. A limited-stop bus that was more direct and shared with the general public might work well.

Furthermore, changing the Circulator to run down M Street was a bad move. It originally ran down the less congested K Street and still took riders to the intersection of M and Wisconsin, but got one there much faster from downtown. I have tried taking it from the Farragut Square area up to Wisconsin and M, but it often goes so slow for the last half mile that it's less frustrating to get off and walk.

Ultimately, a streetcar/tram should run from a downtown metro station into Georgetown. Given the awful congestion on M, it would probably run down K. The most transit-friendly solution (which will almost certainly never happen) would be to divert traffic away from M Street in Georgetown (big dig anyone?), pedestrianize most of those choked-sidewalk blocks, and run a tram down the center. M Street could be like the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich or Grafton Street in Dublin -- oh, we can dream, and in the meantime get city leaders who have some vision.

by LM on Jun 19, 2009 3:47 am • link • report

David,

can yo please elaborate on what legal/ethical standing the ANC has in negotiating with GU on this issue? It seems to illustrate perfectly one of the greatest problems with the ANC system. Several posters hare have implied that the ANC has no legal authority to limit access to public roads. Several others have implied that they will do so anyway, and hold hostage the approval of other GU projects for which they do have legal standing.

Is that true? Is it legal? Is it ethical?

by CJ on Jun 19, 2009 9:55 am • link • report

As much as i'm all for transit, they should just cancel the GUTS buses altogether. Georgetown has a ton of bus services (GMC, Circulator, Metrobus routes) that all (and frequently redundantly,) connect the 'hood to the Metro. If the students aren't smart enough to figure out a bus route, should they really be in college? :)

by Aaron on Jun 19, 2009 10:52 am • link • report

haven't been following the GU issues lately - but isn't part of the backdrop to the whole issue the fact that the city and the Georgetown neighborhood keep trying to make the Canal Rd entrance the only vehicular entranceway to GU? I don't see it as much of an issue of Georgetown residents wanting to close public streets to public transportion as much as trying to incentivize adherence to long-standing plans to refocus vehicular transportion access to GU solely through Canal Road. I remember them making a big thing of this back in the 80s and 90s - is that still the case today?

by andy on Jun 19, 2009 11:01 am • link • report

What about the G2? As a former Georgetown student, I have to say that I used it much, much more than the D6 - it leaves right from the front gates of campus, which is the heart of where everything takes place. The area is well-lit and has high foot traffic. From my experience, The G2 is used more by other students as well, especially since it also makes a stop at the Car Barn (another Georgetown academic building) and continues all the way down P Street (I often got off at 14th Street, which now has a Circulator stop right there, in addition to a stop for the 50 buses).

The GUTS only runs a few rounds on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays, which is when many students want to go into the city anyway. I have to say, though, that the GUTS buses are heavily used on weekdays, especially at rush hour (when they come every five minutes), and if the university didn't offer them, and instead advertised the WMATA lines, WMATA would have to make huge increases in service.

by Thomas on Jun 19, 2009 12:27 pm • link • report

@ andy, I'm not sure those are two different things---residents trying to restrict use of Res. Rd and residents trying to force all traffic out Canal Rd.---but you're right, that is what they'd like to see.

I think it's important to keep in mind that students are well aware that there are city buses that can get us to, say, Dupont, too---but they're not free and they make additional stops. GUTS buses are convenient because they're faster (at least, when they're allowed to take the logical routes) but they're also inexpensive in a way that's pretty meaningful to students. The same trip would cost us $2.50 a day using WMATA buses, or $12.50 a week, or $150 if we worked 12 weeks this summer. To people who can afford homes in Georgetown, that may be nothing, but to students who may be squeezing in shifts at a restaurant around an unpaid internship, that's a significant amount of money---and why we're not too keen on replacing GUTS buses with something we'd have to pay for.

by Molly Redden on Jun 19, 2009 12:30 pm • link • report

The author argues that Georgetown could apply the money it spends on GUTS to subsidize WMTA and student tickets. Without knowing the underlying economics, we can assume that this would be infeasible for three reasons:

--First, the cost of providing every student, faculty and staff member, guest and hospital patient with the equivalent of two metro-tickets per day would be infeasible. You may argue that the university need only look at current rider trends to determine a course of action, but ridership is subject to seasonal fluctuation and irregular class schedules.

--Second, GUTS provides service to one of Washington's latest medical centers. Because it serves a niche university community, it can afford longer delays due to riders with disabilities. Asking hospital patients to trudge across campus and load onto buses is both discrimanatory to the patients and inconvenient to the public transportaion riders.

--Third, as Redden notes, the GUTS buses serve a student populace whose wages are lower than fully employed individuals, especially now. To wit, the recession has not treated summer interns kindly. Why should Georgetown penalize students who need to work off-campus (many of whom are on work study) for using the same roads that school buses and MTA busses use?

The author notes that the buses are not available to all. To the contrary, for a nominal fee of $1, any individual may ride a GUTS bus. Indeed, the by serving hospital patients, the buses provide a resource to all Washingtonians who seek medical care at Georgetown.

by Are you kidding? on Jun 19, 2009 1:03 pm • link • report

Molly you're talking two different things though. I went to Georgetown back in the mid-late 70s when the GUTS busses first started. The campus then was suffering the results of a poor decision made in the 1960s not to build any more on-campus housing, and a substantial number of students ended up living off-campus in Arlington and up in Alban Towers across from the Cathedral which GU bought for student housing. The GUTS busses addressed a true need for cheap student transportion and connected areas (particularly in Arlington) that were underserved with easy transit connections to campus. I don't think anyone has an issue with Georgetown providing cheap needed transporttion access to far-flung students (although I'm glad that they subsequently changed their on-campus student housing stance).

But there has always been a tension between the University and the Georgetown community about the impact of the externalities of having a large institution such as GU sitting in the midst of a residential area that is already quite congested - and through the years, the GU master plan has almost always made a point of emphasizing development and policy toward limiting vehicular access as much as possible to the Canal Road entrance. Without questioning the merits of whether or not GU students need and deserve cheap transportion access to campus or not, I'm just wondering how much the main issue here has to do with GU's stated adherence to the Canal Road vehicular access plans as publicized throughout the years, rather than just being an issue of rich NIMBY Georgetowners wanting riff-raff off of their streets. It's very easy to beat up on the rich neighbors - but I think there are larger issues dealing with instutional representations and promises made by GU to the community over the years that may be a large factor in this.

by andy on Jun 19, 2009 1:05 pm • link • report

Fair point, but having been to community meetings and spoken to ANC members about this, nobody seems to recall Georgetown's promise to use Canal Road or insist GUTS buses use Canal Road because Georgetown ever pledged to do so. Whatever the case may have been historically, now they push for that because it gets GUTS buses off of Res. Rd.

by Molly Redden on Jun 19, 2009 1:14 pm • link • report

Stewart, your post is both a joke and spam. If overhead wires are banned in Georgetown, why would anyone allow an overhead structure that doesn't even work?

Next, it's an attempt to move the thread from a relevant topic in our community to a private company that is touting a technology that doesn't work and never will.

David, could you remove this PRT spam? Maybe after that, remove this comment so the thread can continue to discuss the topic you wrote about?

by Cavan on Jun 19, 2009 2:59 pm • link • report

@ Aaron: The only buses that come near enough to the university to be convenient enough that people would want to ride them are the D2, D3, D6, and G2. And those make a lot of additional stops, don't even approach the frequency of GUTS, and go to DuPont (not Rosslyn, or any other blue/orange station). While the number of different services that go there may be high, that doesn't mean their frequency is.

@CJ: "Several posters hare have implied that the ANC has no legal authority to limit access to public roads. Several others have implied that they will do so anyway, and hold hostage the approval of other GU projects for which they do have legal standing. "

That's exactly right.

"Is that true? Is it legal? Is it ethical?"

Yes. Probably. Maybe. I don't really have a problem with the concept of bargaining for things you don't have in general. (Example: I don't think the ANC can decide what amount of parking a new structure has. But I'd be fine with them refusing to provide the proper zoning unless they got proper parking assurance.) But the demands they're making here are just stupid.

by Doug on Jun 19, 2009 5:36 pm • link • report

I'll look up that thread about school buses, because there are good reasons why parents might not want their kids to ride on a public bus.

by Ward 1 Guy on Jun 19, 2009 5:54 pm • link • report

I've removed the PRT spammer. I've also banned him from commenting.

by David Alpert on Jun 19, 2009 6:34 pm • link • report

As a 15 year student and employee at Georgetown who uses both GUTS and Metrobus, I've often thought a WMATA-based solution might be a good idea as well, but I think it's impractical for several reasons.

1. Whatever it's original purpose, GUTS is primarily transport for off-campus students and employees to get to campus because of the lack of parking. The number of parking spaces on campus is limited by law (zoning code/master plan? I'm not sure which). There are actually parking spaces in the main garage that are cordoned off and never used because using them would exceed the cap. The cap is actually shared with GU Hospital (an institution no longer owned by the university BTW) because they were grandfathered into the limit when they were sold to MedStar. Parking on campus is so limited that there are waiting lists for spots that cost the employee well over $1000 per year (http://otm.georgetown.edu/index.cfm?fuse=parking).

2. I don't think Metrobus could actually run with the frequency needed at rush hours to transport the current GUTS folks and the existing Metrobus passengers. GUTS buses already run every 5-10 minutes at rush. Though some of these are smaller airport-shuttle type vehicles, all of them are packed to the gills. The Metrobuses D buses also run pretty frequently, but they are similarly packed, mostly with students from Duke Ellington HS. (The D buses are their school buses). I don't know if Metro could run buses frequently enough at rush to meet that demand.

3. During the midday and evening hours, GUTS buses run more frequently than Metrobuses, every 20 minutes, as a way to get people without cars off campus and to Dupont in a reasonable amount of time. Most of those buses aren't very full. Metro might be able to meet that demand, but those will be some pretty empty buses.

As an employee, the virtue of the GUTS bus as it operates now is that it gets a employee to the heart of campus relatively quickly. It makes no other stops and runs frequently at the time when most folks need to get to or leave from campus. If you extend that trip and add it onto the time that folks will spend on the train, what is the likelihood that a significant number of people will say "Screw it" and start driving and parking in the neighborhood because the risk of a ticket is worth it?

by ChrisDC on Jun 20, 2009 12:03 pm • link • report

FYI:

- the Dupont GUTS stop is not at the same location as the D3/6 line. GUTS stops at 20th and Mass. D6 stops at Hopkins (between 20th/21st) and P. Much more room for folks to queue up at the GUTS stop.

- Only the D6 comes all the way to GU at 37th/38th & Reservoir. The D3, D2, and even portion of the D6s marked "Georgetown" stop at Ellington HS at 35th & Reservoir a couple blocks away.

- The GUTS branded buses are not that old, definitely less that 10 years. They were bought new around 2000 if I remember correctly. They replaced some really old, aging buses around the time when old main parking lot was dug up to build the Southwest Quad.

Something that might help is if DDOT collected a fee from institutions with permanent shuttle services like GUTS that would go toward more frequent road resurfacing on the bus routes. Better paving should lead to a lot less noise and vibration from buses and other large vehicles on these roads. Some of the streets in Georgetown are horribly pot-holed and washboarded.

by ChrisDC on Jun 20, 2009 12:13 pm • link • report