With Metro’s weekend service now stopping at midnight, many will turn to buses for their late night transportation. PlanItMetro recent posted maps of all the bus service that’s available in our region after midnight. They’re a great step toward giving riders the information they need, but they also highlight some of the ways our night bus network falls short.

Our region’s bus service between midnight and 1 am. Maps from WMATA.

There are three maps in all: One showing service from midnight to 1 am, one from 1 to 2 am, and one from 2 to 3. On top of Metrobus, the maps show routes offered by Arlington’s ART, Montgomery County’s Ride On, the DC Circulator, and the Fairfax Connector.

How thick a route is on the map indicates how long the wait between buses should be, with the thickest lines meaning the headway should be less than 20 minutes.

Service between 1 and 2 am.

PlanItMetro notes that the maps are missing some existing routes, like the Z8, which is a major line in Montgomery County; the maps should be updated soon. The maps also include some routes with such low frequency (once an hour or less) that it’s debatable whether they’re useful at all.

Most importantly, though, there’s very little late night service after 1 am aside from what WMATA offers (other than some Fairfax Connector service), and most of that is designed to feed into or out of the Metro system— which isn’t running past 12 anymore.

Service between 2 and 3 am.

Two of the most frequent routes between 2 and 3 AM (running every half hour) are the 16E and 82. However, the 16E is completely unconnected to DC, running only from Metro stations in Alexandria and Arlington west to Annandale. When the Metro is shut down, this route is a lot less useful— though at least it does connect with some other bus routes.

Even worse is the 82: it runs between Rhode Island Avenue Metro station and Mount Rainier, but without the Metro there is no way to reach this route via transit.

Compiling these routes is an important first step toward providing solid late night bus service, and it highlights where the network could get a lot better. Hopefully the maps can be improved, made more user-friendly, and placed on the WMATA website for riders to access them more easily.

And ideally, we can then start to take concrete steps to fill in the significant gaps in the area’s night bus network.