Metro News Release
For immediate release: February 12, 2009
Metro looks to add express bus service to 16th Street Line in D.C.
Expansion of Metro bus corridors
Metro plans to add rush hour express bus service to its third busiest line as early as the end of next month.
The Metro Board’s Finance, Administration and Oversight Committee gave its endorsement of a plan today (February 12) to add an express route to the 16th Street Line, which carries more than 16,000 rides a day through Northwest Washington. The Board will vote on the plan later this month.
New blue and silver hybrid-electric buses with “express” branding would be used on the new S9 route, which would have fewer stops and be shorter than the S1, S2 and S4 routes that currently make up the line.
Instead of 82 stops from the Silver Spring Metro station to Federal Triangle or Potomac Park, there would be 16 stops from the rail station to McPherson Square. Buses would arrive every 10 minutes during morning and evening rush hours and riders will save 6 to 8 minutes from their travel times.
"Metrobus Express on 16th Street will help riders get where they’re going faster,” said Metro Board Chairman Jim Graham. “It will also reduce overcrowding and help buses stay on schedule. Express bus service has been a great success on Georgia Avenue. I expect the same on 16th Street."
Metro currently operates 171 bus lines with an average weekday ridership of about 450,000. The transit agency has five express bus routes which run along Georgia Avenue (70s Line) and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Avenues (30s Line) in the District of Columbia.; REX, which runs along Richmond Highway in Fairfax County; Pike Ride on Columbia Pike, Crystal City-Potomac Yard (9A,9E,9S) in Arlington and the NH1 route to National Harbor in Prince George's County. Planners also are studying adding express service on Veirs Mill Road (Q2) in Montgomery County and Leesburg Pike (28AB, 28FG, 28T) in Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax County. Metro officials hope to have a total of 24 express routes by 2015.
“Express service cuts travel times by about 15 percent and significantly increases ridership, said Jim Hughes, a Metro senior planner. “More importantly, Metro and the District’s Department of Transportation have met with the residents along this corridor, and they want the new service.”
A more than two-year trial of the service would cost about $3.6 million and would be paid for by the District of Columbia. Metro plans to evaluate the route in six months.
Planners say in the future, the buses could get green light signals ahead of other vehicles, lanes that would put them in front of other traffic and dedicated bus lanes.
“The service would be even faster with those road improvements,” Hughes said.
News release issued at 1:57 pm, February 12, 2009.