The NY Times’ travel section had a letter to the editor encouraging tourists to use public transportation.

Try riding a local or express bus, van, ferry, jitney, light rail, monorail, subway or commuter rail line. Many systems provide daily or weekly discounted fun passes geared to out-of-town tourists. In most cases, these transportation systems are financed with your tax dollars. Why not use these investments and reap the benefits? You’ll be supporting a cleaner environment and be less stressed upon arrival at your places of interest.

Sounds very ideal (though probably makes the people over at Stand to the Right cringe). But this made DCist wonder how transit friendly the nation’s capital is for tourists. Certainly, using the metrorail system is relatively easy but what about the bus?

Saturday, DCist was waiting for a bus in Tenleytown when a group of tourists from Alabama asked whether they were at the right bus stop for the National Cathedral. The mother of the crew got really confused examining the new bus maps (which also list discontinued bus lines) to figure out how to get there. She saw that a little write up on the Cathedral which indicated she should take the N2 (which doesn’t run on the weekends) instead of the 30s, which, while slow and unpredicable, will get you there eventually.

Even when WMATA makes an effort to make the bus system more user-friendly, it seems to make things more confusing. DCist thinks D.C. urban geography is easy to understand, but in reality, it can be very confusing to newcomers.