June 6, 2005
Busing Around the 18th St. Blues
This weekend was certainly a test for the Adams Morgan-18th Street lack-of-parking experiment. The heat, humidity, coupled with the new restrictions for sure frustrated outsiders looking to find a parking space on 18th Street NW, seen here in this photo posted by FurCafe in DCist Photos. As the Post reported last week, the restrictions are part of a pilot program where on Friday and Saturday nights through September, parking is prohibited in the southbound curb lane of 18th Street between Columbia and Kalorama roads. The intent is to unclog the late-night traffic mess -- which is normally a mix of tetchy cabbies, tacky white rented limos and jubilant floosies running across the thoroughfare for jumbo slice -- so emergency vehicles, buses and others can better make their way through the nightclub and bar corridor between Columbia Road and U Street.
As DCist has already mentioned, the city and neighborhood interests in Adams Morgan and Woodley Park are looking at ways to improve transportation and access on both sides of the Duke Ellington Bridge. Also coming down the pike is the routing of a potential light-rail line on 18th Street in a crosstown line connecting American University with the city's Southeast quadrant.
So now if you drive to Adams Morgan, the elimination of the parking on 18th Street will add to the crunch elsewhere, which for sure frustrates you. As a public service, we here at DCist want to inform you of alternate ways of getting to Adams Morgan: metrobus. We use it all the time.
>> Are you coming from Dupont Circle? There's one easy way to get to Adams Morgan, the 42/Mount Pleasant bus. The 42 is one of the most essential bus routes in the city, connecting Mount Pleasant with Downtown. Just stand at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and Q Street, in front of the Connecticut Avenue Liquor store. Because of its heavy ridership, the 42 is scheduled to come ever 10 minutes or so during the day and later on weekend nights comes every 15 minutes or so. The problem with the 42 is that is can easily get off schedule, but one will come eventually, sometimes in pairs or triples. But it takes you to the top of 18th Street. Simple and easy.
>> Do you live along the upper reaches of Connecticut Avenue in or near Cleveland Park or Van Ness? You can take one bus straight to Adams Morgan, versus paying 2-3 zones for a cab or taking the Red Line to Woodley Park and then walk or cab. The L2 bus, which runs between Chevy Chase Circle and downtown via Connecticut Avenue and 18th Street. On weekend nights, the L2 generally runs twice an hour, but because traffic moves so swiftly on Connecticut Avenue, the L2 is normally on time and the trip is quick: One way from the Van Ness station to 18th Street and Columbia Road is normally 10-15 minutes.
>> In Woodley Park, the bus secret is Sherry's Liquor. Across the street from the liquor store on Calvert Street just east of Connecticut Avenue is a bus stop where you can catch the L2, the 90 and 98 buses, all of which will take you straight onto 18th Street. Standing at the metrorail station itself, you can catch the 98 (on the Connecticut Avenue or 24th Street sides) and the L2 (on the 24th Street side). But only on Calvert Street can you catch all three buses and ride into Adams Morgan on which ever one comes first. In a related sidenote, the 96 and 97 buses can be caught on the other side of the Duke Ellington Bridge, but if you walk that far, you might as well walk all the way to 18th Street.
The 98 bus is known as the Adams Morgan-U Street Link and is only 25 cents. It is supposed to run every 10-15 minutes, but because of traffic on 18th Street at night it can get way off schedule.
>> Attention Virginians, you can get all the way to Adams Morgan without even taking the Red Line. Getting off at the Farragut West station, walk one block north on 18th Street to K Street and wait for a L2 bus heading westbound on K Street. The L2 heads up to Dupont Circle and on up to Adams Morgan via 20th and 18th streets. But you'll probably tire of waiting on desolate K Street and will hail a cab and contribute to congestion on 18th Street, fire trucks won't be able to get through to a three-alarm fire or something and someone will die.
>> Some general rules: Remember, it is best to check WMATA's bus timetables. They're not always the most user-friendly, but it doesn't take a neurosurgeon to figure them out. Buses are normally on time or are running within 5 minutes of their schedule, if there isn't rain or a major traffic mishap. SmarTrip makes transferring between metrorail and metrobus easy. But if you're the type to shun SmarTrip, you're probably best to get a paper transfer before you enter your point-of-entry metrorail station and then pay the 35 cent transfer when boarding the bus. And it's OK to wear party clothes on the bus. The drivers don't care!
Happy bus riding. The denizens of Adams Morgan will appreciate you taking the bus to Tom-Tom, the Reef or Ghana Cafe versus driving and causing a congested conundrum.
>> Rock Creek Rambler on Councilmember Jim Graham's declaration that 18th Street has a latitudinal orientation instead of a longitudinal one.
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Why don't they put a cop on 18th St just for directing traffic at night? he can tell all the cars stopped on the street to move along and can get jaywalkers to stop. It has to help more than just taking away parking spaces.
Correction: There is no southbound side of 18th street. They've closed the west side of the street to parking on the weekends.
Can we keep the anti-va comments to the comment section? It is getting kind of old to have a weekly official VA slur.
Virginians a bit touchy this morning? I guess Joe has never waited for the L2 at night down on K or L Streets. I have. The L2, despite what Mike Grass says, is one of the crappiest bus lines in the city. It isn't unusual during the morning route to get about 2 busses an hour. I've also sat at the 20th and L stop for a few minutes at night before starting to walk home to Adams Morgan -- I've walked along the bus route and have made it to Kalorama and 18th before the bus finally caught me.
ok, i really like this site... and i know there has already been some discussion over the past couple of weeks about this, but god, please stop the misplaced agression towards 'virginians'.
i understand that the majority of virginians are suburbanite assholes. however, this prejudicial assumption that all of us are suburbanite, rich, yuppie fucks is annoying. it comes up a lot in the articles as of late.
please understand that there are two urban communities known as 'arlington' and 'alexandria', both of which share a border with your utopian city. we know that we don't have as much culture as dc does in some ways, and a lot of us would rather live on the other side of the river.
however, some of us can't afford the housing prices in the district, and lots and lots of us have jobs on this side of the river, making it impossible, implausible, or even irresponsible to commute from dc. many of us ride the subway instead of driving taking cabs everywhere. gasp, some of us even ride the busses regularly.
i think your agression is misplaced and should be directed toward those living outside of the beltway, in the true suburbs.
why direct all this anger at virginians, but never to marylanders?
new restrictions for sure frustrated outsiders looking to find a parking space on 18th Street NW,
LOL! Who in the hell seriously looks for parking on 18th street on friday and saturday nights?!?!? This change probably frustrates at most 12 people (the 12 who are able to park there).
Two things:
There is a southbound curb lane, on the west side of street just as there is a northbound curb lane on the east side of the street. If you want to argue technicalities, I'm game.
Second, I'm sorry to those from Virginia who interpret this entire post as a slam on those from your side of the river. It's actually meant to aid everyone who find it annoying to get from the Red Line to Adams Morgan and end up driving and making the traffic situation worse. Granted there are plenty of D.C. drivers who contribute to the problem as well and are just as idiotic, but as you are all well aware, Virginia plates can instantly create hostility in congested situations in D.C. That's just the reality, whether it is right or wrong.
Essentially, my point is that it's cool for everyone to ride the bus. But when I talk to my Virginia friends and strangers about taking the bus in the District, they think as if I'm crazy. WMATA would love it if people would take the bus into Adams Morgan, just to demonstrate the great utility of the metrobus system (when it works of course.).
(There are D.C. people who are just as close-minded about bus riding, too. And they should be called out too, as they have been in the past on DCist.)
"Virginia plates can instantly create hostility in congested situations in D.C."
Hint -- that's not the fault of the people with Virginia license plates.
Yudacris and the rest - I think we all agree it sucks to drive on 18th at night, whatever state or district you are from, and you'd be dumb to do it. but really, i think the problem is doofuses stopping their cars on 18th St and people crossing the street all the time.
Mr. Yuda -- Please don't shoot the messenger. We're just stating the reality of the situation, whether the perception of that reality is right or wrong. Whether certain DCers hate Virginians or love them, among many DCers there is a hatred of those who clog the roads when they could be riding public transportation. And often that is directed at the commonwealth.
This post was supposed to be about riding the bus, and like other times in comments, a misinterpretation of an observation has spiraled out of control into a cross-Potomac war. This was not intentional on our part.
If anyone wants to comment on bus service on the L2, 98, 90 or 42 buses, please continue.
The WMATA bus system, while less than perfect, is a really useful way to get around the limited coverage of the Metro--and skip those annoying 20 minute walks that are just too short to justify the cost of a cab.
Well, I can't speak for other Virginians, but the only time I drive downtown at night is if I'm taking out-of-town guests down to see the monuments lit up at night. If we're going out to bars/clubs/baseball games/concerts, we take the train.
I live at Calvert and Adams Mill in Adams Morgan and drink in Dupont. The L2 is great for these trips but to infrequent. The 42 is a good runner up. But what would be great is an L3 running just the Woodley to Dupont part of the L2's route on Thurs thru Sat nights. And 4+ times an hour.
I've seen these comment threads devolve into flame wars with minimal justification before, but this one really takes the cake. Could someone please point out ANYthing in the original post that is actually a "slur" or "anti-VA"? There's only even one mention of Virginia in the whole post, so I have to assume that these folks are getting their panties all bunched up over the implication that they might get bored waiting for the bus. Some people really need to work on their outrage and annoyance filters.
The 98 bus is known as the Adams Morgan-U Street Link and is only 25 cents. It is supposed to run every 10-15 minutes, but because of traffic on 18th Street at night it can get way off schedule.
On Friday night, a group of friends & I planned on taking the 98 bus from my house at around U & 11th to a house party in Adams Morgan. After waiting 15 minutes for the 98 bus in front of Bohemian Caverns we decided to just start walking to Adams Morgan.
We were hoping that when the 98 bus approached us, we'd be near a bus stop to flag it down. 8 blocks and 30 minutes later, the 98 bus finally arrived at the intersection of 18th & U St & Florida, and since we were already 3/4's of the way there we just skipped riding the bus entirely.
Point of the story- for the bus to be used effectively, it needs to be running on schedule, otherwise its useless. No one is going to wait for a bus if they can reach their destination by foot before the bus ever comes!
Chris is on to something there- most bus routes are too long. The 42 does run a Mt. Pleasant-Farragut route about every other bus, rather than going on to Metro center, but even that's too much. On a Friday/Saturday night, I'd be willing to bet that 80% of its ridership is on the Dupont-Mt Pleasant section of the route. WMATA should run a larger schedule of buses from Mt. P to the Dupont North entrance and back.
Nate, you are the voice of reason. The rest of us, me included perhaps, should be banished to St. E's for a full mental analysis.
Following up on Brody's comments, WMATA could do something like they do with the D2 line, which utilizes those smaller buses to take riders between Glover Park, Georgetown and Dupont. They would be wise to throw a couple of those buses on the 42 line and run them only between Mt.P and Dupont on busy weekend nights.
Of course, asking WMATA to be innovative with Metrobus (for example, creating direly needed express buses with limited stops on the 42 and S-series lines) is asking a lot.
i could see that this was supposed to be helpful for everyone, including virginians, in getting around adams morgan by bus, and i should have added in my comment that i thank you for that, since a lot of us don't know how to get out there that way.
but the comment that we will probably hail a cab and contribute to someone's untimely death was just a little over the top thats all. i just feel like you're alienating a lot of your readers with comments like that.
also, as advice for other virginians, this arlingtonian finds it nice to walk to bars and restaurants from the orange line. for dupont circle area and adams morgan area establishments, its nice to get off at farragut west and walk north. even the walk to adams morgan isnt so bad. for all points on 14th street, even 9:30 and dc9, it's more enjoyable and sometimes faster to walk up 14th street from mcpherson square. if you're lucky, you can even transfer to the N2 (among others, i'm sure) and end up there even faster.
transferring from orange/blue to red or green really sucks though.
When I wrote:
"But you'll probably tire of waiting on desolate K Street and will hail a cab and contribute to congestion on 18th Street, fire trucks won't be able to get through to a three-alarm fire or something and someone will die."
That was meant as a joke, fitting in with the theme of the original post and the intent of the parking regs to begin with ... to make sure fire trucks can move on through. It was also commentary on how waiting for a bus on desolate K Street is an alientating experience (perhaps more of a slam on WMATA's bus service) and how you'd probably want to cab it from there. If I would have added one or two colorful adjectives about waiting on K Street for the L2, would I have offended our K Street hooker community for slamming their turf?
People just have to lighten up. Seriously. Do you really think I would directly blame the deaths of people in a fire on the entire state of Virginia and its driving habits?
I have a bi-partisan solution to the VA sensitivity issue:
When making comments concerning negative action/situations caused by "misinformed" suburbanites, refer to the guilty parties as the "Outer Beltway" crowd (as in what NYC does with Bridge & Tunnel people). Because I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people who live in cities within the beltway (Arlington, Alexandria, Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park) have some clue to the unwritten rules of DC & most likely opt for public trans whenever possible. And in the grand scheme of things, there is no difference between someone who lives in Rockville vs Fairfax vs Laurel vs Annadale. All equally clueless ;)
Add it to the DCist charter. It's a wrap.
- j o h n (a native Arlingtonian, who could roll with any DC'er anyday)
mgrass, just some friendly advice.
More than once the last couple of weeks, assorted DCist posters have made "jokes" aimed at Virginians that have offended people. Maybe, just maybe, they're not funny?
I mean, if there weren't the consistent anti-suburban thing going on (mostly in comments), I'd probably take them as jokes that just aren't funny. But given the subtext, I generally read them as hiding behind humor to voice a subconscious gripe with Virginia and/or Maryland.
Uh, Yuda....GET OVER IT, ALREADY!!!
It's a simple fact of life: suburbanites get teased by those who live in the city. Deal with it! Or pack up and move to DC. It's really quite simple.
it's pretty ridiculous. many DCists live in va or md, or have lived there (myself included) and like it perfectly fine. i think it's just a matter of people reading too much into particular comments. if there was a specific comment that was blatantly anti-virginian, bring it up. but this is sooooo ooold...i feel bad even commenting myself but somehow cannot resist the temptation. basically, i think we're pretty screwed if we mention virginians in any manner other than having holy light from heaven pouring forth on them.
mike: i know that you didnt mean to suggest anything that horrible. i was just saying that the remark probably doesnt apply to many of your readers (i imagine most of your readers are people who live inside the beltway and hang out in dc) and alienates some of us.
j o h n summed up exactly the sort of thing i was trying to say.
i didn't mean to start some crappy flame-war. i just felt like virginians have taken some crap on this site lately that was unnecessary.
back on topic though, i should also recommend that orange-liners partying in dc late at night take the 38b bus home if they missed the last train. if memory serves me, it runs every 30 minutes from farragut west to ballston.
beats the hell out of a 20+ dollar cab ride.
Teasing is fine, especially from commenters. I mean, after all, I mention Marion Barry and his repeated electoral success at least three times a week. (Bitch set him up, by the way.)
But, if readers (who are, effectively, customers to DCist) keep getting offended at not-especially-funny jokes by DCist writers, they're going to stop reading the site. I recognize that neither I nor anybody else here contributes monitarily to DCist, but I do click on some of the ads from time to time because I like the service provided by the site.
I mean, really, if they want to drive away their readerbase, that's their decision; I just don't think it's a very wise one.
Nikolas and all: You cannot 'flag down' a bus. In fact, a busdriver who sees a person at a bus stop waving makes the assumption that the person waving is waiting for a different bus.
I have learned this from actually riding the bus (not attempting to ride the bus) and talking to busdrivers on the 90 series, 30 series and 42 routes.
Sweet sassy molassey! I have a shiny quarter for anyone who can find something remotely "offensive" about the article. Really, have at it and get back to me.
And people who live in the city get mocked by those who don't:
"wow, it's like 100 degrees today. DC must be baking with all that exhaust, and what's that? this weekend is the Chilli cook-off along with the Cherry Blossom fest? they must be packed like sardines. hun - grab me another bud light as float around in my pool. thanks."
it's vicious circle. no one ever wins. no one's better. the quicker we can suck it up and take the jab the quicker the jabbee will see that they're not funny and end the jabs.
then we can move on to more important things, like when's the next Army of Me show and what's going to be this years summer cocktail du jour.
How late do the buses run on the weekends?
38B only runs till like 3:20 on weekends. I thought it ran later, but I must be nuts. this is only good for weeknight trips.
Just a quick chime in: what does everybody have against walking? A 20-minute walk isn't much, even in trendy "not-meant-for-walking" footwear. Besides, the physical activity is actually good to do ev'ry so often.
All snark aside, people tend to be too wed to the "if I can't drive/ride someplace, it's not worth it." Frankly, the walk from Woodley Park, 13th and U or Dupont Circle to Adams Morgan is not too difficult, and it's within most people's phyisical capabilities.
Sure, take the trains in from a distance. But don't feel like you're completely lost if you have to walk once you get into DC.
I couldn't agree more with songfta. I think the walk from the Woodley Park Metro and Adams Morgan is quite lovely. It's long enough to be invigorating but not so long that you feel tired.
I really think that once you start finding ways in and out of the neighborhood that don't require your car, the driving-to-Adams-Morgan habit will be easy to break.
I gotta agree...I've made many new friends by walking across the bridge from the Woodley Park metro. Walking from U street metro is a bit long, but entirely possible, and walking from Dupont isn't bad either.
They all can be done in under 20 mins or so.
As much as DCist tries to pump up the bus system, it's really not user friendly for newcomers and the buses can be very infrequent at night.
Another Adams Morgan bus option for people who live up 16th Street or in Silver Spring is the S-series bus. You can get off at 16th and Columbia or 16th and U, and walk the couple of blocks to Adams Morgan. It also works the other way, for people heading to happy hour in Adams Morgan from downtown.
To the 20 minute walk advocates--as a Woodley Park resident I hear where you're coming from, and often do end up making that walk to Adams Morgan or Dupont Circle. But when I need to be there in 10 minutes, or when it's 30 degrees outside, or when it's 95 degrees outside, it often makes more sense to hop on the bus. Also, I have never made a friend on any of my hundred-or-so walks across the bridge.