dr. gridlock's response was fairly worthless and avoided the issue. of course it's "hard" to run buses on time. it's also "hard" to perform any number of governmental tasks, but difficulty of the task at hand is no reason to accept poor service. sadly, the good doctor had no proposed solutions.
the x2 is chronically late. i have complained via the metro site and cc-ed councilperson wells. i hope that more people do the same (i.e. instead of avoiding the x2, let's try to create a critical mass of people complaining to the point where metro gets some improvements accomplished with that line, including improving timeliness and cleanliness).
as much as i hate the x2 bus, i don't think metro itself should shoulder all the blame. its a crosstown bus that travels a highly congested corridor. i get on the bus one stop from where it starts at the white house and get off at hechinger mall. during rush hour i can see how frustrating it is for the drivers trying to navigate through the traffic along h st nw and ne, cars are always blocking the curb lanes, there are tons of riders that get on the bus downtown, in chinatown , north capital and 8th st. connection. there have been times where its taken the bus around 15 minutes to get from 9th st nw down to 4th street because of the traffic and the volume of passengers getting on and getting off, plus the fact that many passengers don't seem to be very considerate and are often disruptive to the whole process. the bus typically sits through 4 or 5 lights at north capital becuase of all the passengers transfering from the other lines. if anything the solution would be to change the timetables to give the buses more time to run the route or shorten the x2 line altogether.
Another aspect of the timeliness issue is that the schedules posted are simply unrealistic, given the traffic, pedestrians and many transfers from one line to another.
All of this results in the busses barreling down H Street going 40, 50 or more MPH. Anytime they get free from traffic for even a moment, they have to race to try and get back onto the (unrealistic) schedule.
I always shake my head when I read about Metro supervisors being in the field to do spot checks on the drivers. They certainly don't seem to pay much attention to the X2 on our portion of H Street.
Given the superlative frequency of buses on H St., while the schedules might be off in terms of the bus arrivals, and yes, there are missed buses, for the most part the bus is pretty reliable. Frankly, it's faster to take a bus from Gallery Place than it is to take the subway to Union Station and walk from there.
The drivers are in a no-win situation...it's such a heavily-ridden line that one small hold-up, say helping a wheelchair patron on to the bus, causes a chain reaction of more people at the next stops, causing more loading delays, etc. In no time you've got two buses running together. I'm sure Richard could reply saying "That's known as the such-and-such effect." It must be well documented.
The X2 route would be perfect for an additional express bus, one that stopped, say, every five blocks instead of every block. As it is, the X2 lets off and on a crowd of people at every single corner along H St. An express bus could move more quickly by only stopping at transfer points like 14th, 8th, etc. It would not cost much more to run, and could get people downtown a lot more quickly. The express should not replace the X2, but I think a lot of people would walk a few extra blocks to avoid the block-by-block local service that the X2 provides.
6 comments:
dr. gridlock's response was fairly worthless and avoided the issue. of course it's "hard" to run buses on time. it's also "hard" to perform any number of governmental tasks, but difficulty of the task at hand is no reason to accept poor service. sadly, the good doctor had no proposed solutions.
the x2 is chronically late. i have complained via the metro site and cc-ed councilperson wells. i hope that more people do the same (i.e. instead of avoiding the x2, let's try to create a critical mass of people complaining to the point where metro gets some improvements accomplished with that line, including improving timeliness and cleanliness).
as much as i hate the x2 bus, i don't think metro itself should shoulder all the blame. its a crosstown bus that travels a highly congested corridor. i get on the bus one stop from where it starts at the white house and get off at hechinger mall. during rush hour i can see how frustrating it is for the drivers trying to navigate through the traffic along h st nw and ne, cars are always blocking the curb lanes, there are tons of riders that get on the bus downtown, in chinatown , north capital and 8th st. connection. there have been times where its taken the bus around 15 minutes to get from 9th st nw down to 4th street because of the traffic and the volume of passengers getting on and getting off, plus the fact that many passengers don't seem to be very considerate and are often disruptive to the whole process. the bus typically sits through 4 or 5 lights at north capital becuase of all the passengers transfering from the other lines. if anything the solution would be to change the timetables to give the buses more time to run the route or shorten the x2 line altogether.
Another aspect of the timeliness issue is that the schedules posted are simply unrealistic, given the traffic, pedestrians and many transfers from one line to another.
All of this results in the busses barreling down H Street going 40, 50 or more MPH. Anytime they get free from traffic for even a moment, they have to race to try and get back onto the (unrealistic) schedule.
I always shake my head when I read about Metro supervisors being in the field to do spot checks on the drivers. They certainly don't seem to pay much attention to the X2 on our portion of H Street.
Best,
Alan Kimber
ANC Commissioner, 6C05
Given the superlative frequency of buses on H St., while the schedules might be off in terms of the bus arrivals, and yes, there are missed buses, for the most part the bus is pretty reliable. Frankly, it's faster to take a bus from Gallery Place than it is to take the subway to Union Station and walk from there.
The drivers are in a no-win situation...it's such a heavily-ridden line that one small hold-up, say helping a wheelchair patron on to the bus, causes a chain reaction of more people at the next stops, causing more loading delays, etc. In no time you've got two buses running together. I'm sure Richard could reply saying "That's known as the such-and-such effect." It must be well documented.
The X2 route would be perfect for an additional express bus, one that stopped, say, every five blocks instead of every block. As it is, the X2 lets off and on a crowd of people at every single corner along H St. An express bus could move more quickly by only stopping at transfer points like 14th, 8th, etc. It would not cost much more to run, and could get people downtown a lot more quickly. The express should not replace the X2, but I think a lot of people would walk a few extra blocks to avoid the block-by-block local service that the X2 provides.
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