'Tis the Season - for MetroBus Cruising
At this or any other time of the year, the best (and smartest) way for visitors and locals alike to experience Washington DC and just about any other city is its public bus system
When I returned to Washington after leaving the Navy in the spring of 1993 to attend law school, I owned a 1987 Mazda RX-7 S4 GXL that I had purchased while living in San Diego. While this, my last 'bachelor' car, was perfect for the Southern California environment of twisting coastal drives, long desert straightaways and winding mountain roads—usually at temperatures substantially above freezing—it was decidedly not very suitable for winters inside the Beltway. I recall the first snow in December when I put it in gear to back it out of the driveway, nudged the accelerator and . . . nothing happened, save the spinning of the rear tires. Needing to get to my Torts exam, I quickly trudged a few blocks and was just in time to catch a very weather-resistant looking 13-ton MetroBus on its way downtown.
I had always liked riding buses to be sure. My parents tell the story of the time they took me to the Kennedy Space Center in 1971, when I was five years old, during the climax of the Apollo Program. The big Saturn V rockets were, it turned out, of far less interest to me than the General Motors TDH-4000 series New Look (aka"Fishbowl") NASA tour bus with its special "sightseer" glass roof. Sure enough 45 years later I indeed remember every detail of that bus which would eventually be counted among my favorite transit vehicles of all time, tying with the UK's AEC Routmaster and the USSR's ZIL/LiAZ-158 as in my view the three most influential transit vehicles of the 20th Century. But I digress . . .
Getting back to the terrible Washington winters of the mid 1990s, I soon discovered that riding MetroBus held a decided advantage over a 2-seater sports car even without icy streets, especially one with a rotary engine that was rather notoriously fuel inefficient in city traffic. Around that time the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) had a slogan frequently seen on the side of MTA buses that aptly summed up the key points of my experience here: "Take the bus. It's cheap. Convenient. And you never have to park it." I very quickly became not only a regular passenger but a confirmed transit advocate.
It was partially for this reason (an also interesting but equally digressive story for another time) that I soon found myself actually working for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) which has operated MetroBus since 1973 along with the MetroRail subway starting in 1976. Among the many benefits of that job, which began my transition from military logistics and combat systems technology into Smart & Connected Transportation, was unlimited free access to the entire WMATA system. Taking full advantage of this, I not only took transit journeys for school or work commuting, but recreational usage as well, and thereby discovered the joys of MetroBus Cruising.
Low floor buses have in recent years brought riders much closer to the roadway, and in doing so greatly enhanced the accessibility of mobility-constrained passengers. Fortunately for cruisers, however, many transit buses including those in the MetroBus fleet, still have conventional high floor sections in the back over the rear axle and engine / mechanical space. These provide an excellent mobile platform that few private vehicles can match for viewing the surroundings. My personal favorite vantage point has always been the window seat on the far right-hand side along the back wall. This lifts you over the roofs of most other vehicles, and practically puts you in the storefronts you pass. More than any other mode of transport, there is a real sense of community as public buses and their diversity of regular local riders invariably deliver a slice of life of the neighborhoods through which they pass. Moreover, they invariably do so in any city or region of the world. This has no doubt been true since the first Shilibeer Omnibus ran on the streets of London nearly 200 years ago and is a world apart from the often poker faced anonymity of passengers on the trains running under or above the street.
Aside from the fact that I have long since turned in my WMATA credentials for free riding and now have a stored value SmarTrip AFC card like everyone else that must be topped up regularly, living out in Reston as I do now (and with a non-service animal dog as my usual local traveling companion at that) MetroBus cruising is indeed a rare pastime for me these days. However is a must at least once around the Holidays. On a trip earlier this week from downtown near L'Enfant Plaza up to Friendship Heights on the Maryland-DC line I rode route 30N on the Wisconsin Avenue Line (as shown in the graphic above, and linked here). I cruised along the National Mall and Federal enclave downtown, swung through Georgetown, skirted Embassy Row. Always the highlight of the trip, I passed right in front of the neo-Gothic Washington National Cathedral which looks even more like the originals in Europe that inspired it these days since it, too, is finally old enough to need restoring and is now covered with scaffolding just like its 800-year old counterparts perennially seem to be. I saw a lot of holiday decorations, and a few interesting shops and great restaurants known during my student days that I was pleased to note were still around after all these years.
Of course, this sort of experience is hardly exclusive to Washington, nor need it be limited to buses. In the cities that that are fortunate enough to have them—either through having preserved them against rubber tired rivals during the car-crazed mania of Post WWII, as New Orleans, Melbourne and essentially every city in Eastern Europe did, or (re-) introduced them fairly recently through new building programs as Houston and Baltimore have, streetcar/Tram/light rail is equally advantageous in combining city feel and scenery with efficient mobility. Trolleybuses too, predominant in much of the world outside North America, are a delight to ride being, as is any form of EV, quiet and emissions free. Be sure to try the ones that The San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency operates in downtown next time you are in the Bay Area if you haven't already done so, with their hill-climbing ability perhaps second only to Muni's most famous asset, the cable cars.
As might be expected, a lot of technology has come into play in the past two decades since I—like more than a century and a half of mass transit riders before me—relied on bus stop placards and printed paper maps, each revised perhaps once a year, that of course gave no account for traffic conditions, weather delays or other contingencies. There are almost too many options to list, but the WMATA main web page linked previously which pops open a journey planning tool when opened is a good start. Whatever smartphone you use, your app store will certainly have a good offering of inexpensive if not free options for whatever city you live in or visit. One of my favorites of the numerous Washington and other city transit apps I have on my iPhone is the (free) DC NextBus. These apps almost invariably offer not just scheduled route information, but analytics-based arrival and departures throughout the system based on WMATA's own real time telematics data as well as weather and service alerts. On this point, beyond the community spirit on the buses themselves, the cyber community of the 21st century is enthusiastically crowdsourcing transit. I am a proud new member of DC Transit Techies and earlier this month attended their latest (and my first) "Metro Hack Night" earlier this month, hosted as always at WMATA Headquarters and graciously sponsored by Urban Insights. Another emerging transit tool that bears watching is TransitScreen, now being developed by CityLab for 30 major US cities. No mobile app yet (having just checked at this writing), but definitely another smart mobility project worthy of following.
So wherever you are traveling this Holiday Season, or if you are at home with a houseful of relatives, get out and get on the bus. Perhaps even better get them onto the bus for some sightseeing and it will prove the most memorable of experiences. In the meantime, all the best for the New Year and a prosperous 2017, with (once again) the hope of seeing many of you soon at TRB!
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