Metro proposes eliminating crosstown buses (D33-D34) serving Petworth/Crestwood/16th Street Heights

[Anonymous]

This is insane to me given all the students who commute west of the park public and private schools. If Metro eliminates these routes, there will be no way for students to get there. Those buses are absolutely packed. I don't get how the planners can be so unaware of how the city's students get to schools.

https://wmata.com/about/board/meetings/board-pdfs/upload/3A-Better-Bus-Network-Redesign-PH-Auth.pdf

People who care about this may want to start contacting Metro or their council members.

[Anonymous]

Private school kids can afford to drive to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Private school kids can afford to drive to school.

This is ridiculous (there are a lot of private schools that offer substantial financial aid, and making it harder for kids who can't "afford to drive" to get across town does nothing but further segregate affluent parts of the city), but also not how public services should be planned. "Private school families can afford their own fire extinguishers." How about -- it is better for the earth (i.e., everyone) if people are able to utilize buses instead of cars.

[Anonymous]

The problem is that metro likely loses money on these specific routes. The routes do not run full time so need to be staffed with drivers that then need to drive other routes. I don’t blame metro for cutting routes that do not have a more general ridership. If DC government wants to continue zoning students to schools kids cannot get to via walking or regular public transit routes then DC should pay wmata to subsidize the existence of these money losing routes. I don’t see that it is metro’s job to run a school bus service.

To be clear I believe there should be easy transit for all students to attend their zoned school (people choosing charters or oob should consider transportation on their decision). I just don’t think it is metro’s job to provide special service at the expense of other routes due to DCPS’s zoning choices.

[Anonymous]

They should have built a new middle school at the old Walter Reed site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should have built a new middle school at the old Walter Reed site.

There is a middle school there already. It’s dci.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private school kids can afford to drive to school.

This is ridiculous (there are a lot of private schools that offer substantial financial aid, and making it harder for kids who can't "afford to drive" to get across town does nothing but further segregate affluent parts of the city), but also not how public services should be planned. "Private school families can afford their own fire extinguishers." How about -- it is better for the earth (i.e., everyone) if people are able to utilize buses instead of cars.

How about we give buses to charter school students? Or do the nyc model where kids have buses from the metro during school hours? I also don’t care about private school students (the three scholarship students can get extra money for Ubers)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have built a new middle school at the old Walter Reed site.

There is a middle school there already. It’s dci.

Not DCPS

[Anonymous]

Right now I would guessed most of the kids riding the 16th St corridor west of the park are heading to Deal or Jackson-Reed, so probably not OOB. For now it is their zoned public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right now I would guessed most of the kids riding the 16th St corridor west of the park are heading to Deal or Jackson-Reed, so probably not OOB. For now it is their zoned public school.

NP but I bet if those families were given a choice to be zoned to a different HS that has a bus route or figure out another way to get to JR they would choose the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have built a new middle school at the old Walter Reed site.

There is a middle school there already. It’s dci.

Not DCPS

Wells is so close. Check the geography. If you're further south, MacFarland is the DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right now I would guessed most of the kids riding the 16th St corridor west of the park are heading to Deal or Jackson-Reed, so probably not OOB. For now it is their zoned public school.

Not any more.

[Anonymous]

This is bad, but it isn't new. My kid chose to go to Walls, and part of our consideration at the time was that the S1 bus made the school easy to get to from upper 16th Street.

That bus route was "temporarily" discontinued during COVID (or so we thought) but it was never brought back. So the commute is a lot tougher now than expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right now I would guessed most of the kids riding the 16th St corridor west of the park are heading to Deal or Jackson-Reed, so probably not OOB. For now it is their zoned public school.

Not any more.

Incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is bad, but it isn't new. My kid chose to go to Walls, and part of our consideration at the time was that the S1 bus made the school easy to get to from upper 16th Street.

That bus route was "temporarily" discontinued during COVID (or so we thought) but it was never brought back. So the commute is a lot tougher now than expected.

I’m also annoyed that they got rid of the S1 bus. It made it easy to get to the west side of downtown. The S2 serves the east side of downtown (as did the S4, RIP) so I don’t get why they won’t bring it back.