D.C. is notorious for its inconvenient transportation, and potential Metro changes are not going to make it any better.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced in a Sept. 24 press release Red Line construction could continue for two more years. AU students should just get used to a slow, inconsistent red line because. According to WMATA, it will not be changing anytime soon. First up is a major delay the weekend of Oct. 4-6.
WMATA also plans to reconstruct the current 96 bus line, currently the longest line in the city. Instead of running a direct route from Tenleytown to Capitol Heights, there will be a new 98 bus that runs from Tenleytown to U Street. The original 96 bus will now run from U Street to Capitol Heights.
This means the trip from Capitol Heights to Tenleytown can no longer be done in one swoop.
For students, this change will not affect us that much. We will still have an easy bus route that runs from Tenleytown to Adams Morgan and U Street. Not many AU students use the 96 bus to go farther than U Street.
However, for those who do need to go farther than U Street this will be a problem. Many of the AU Aramark workers live in northeast or southeast D.C. that surround the Capitol Heights Station. For them, this change will make it so that they have to transfer buses halfway through their journey.
With D.C. buses consistently running late, this will only worsen the commute. With a transfer halfway, if those commuting from Capitol Heights to AU’s campus are late by even five minutes their travel time could be delayed a half hour.
Currently, when the bus is on time, the commute from Capitol Heights takes an hour and a half by bus. Adding in the extra time of waiting to transfer could force commuters to travel for up to two hours there and back.
These changes are meant to benefit D.C. commuters. WMATA claims that with two separate bus lines there will be less traffic, and that with a split line buses will come more often. This change is going to make travel very inconvenient for the employees who already suffer from an already long morning commute.
Metro construction and reorganization is necessary to improve residents’ commutes, but there just has to be a better way. – E
edpage@theeagleonline.com
