Metro’s board will be holding a full public hearing today on the future of the city’s most circulated lines, the 30s. The current set of six routes run east to west along Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Avenues, and carry over 20,000 passengers a day from residential areas in Northwest and Southeast to downtown commercial districts – but unfortunately, the routes suffer from a lot of stops and gos along the way, stalling pick up times and elongating rides.

As a result of a year and a half of feasibility studies and the solicitation of rider opinions, Metro is hoping to initiate the following changes:

Old Routes:
32, 36 – Routes and schedules would stay the same.
30, 34, 35 – Routes would be eliminated.

New Routes:
M5 – a new Southeast route would run from between Eastern Market and Naylor Road Metro stations – essentially a shorter version of the old 34.
31 – a similar Northwest track, spanning from Friendship Heights Metrorail station to Washington Circle.

New Super Awesome Happy Fun Routes:
37 – Would run between Friendship Heights and Archives Navy-Memorial stations via Massachusetts Avenue
39 – Naylor Road station to Washington Circle

The super awesome happy fun part? These two buses would service only 10 of 27 bus stops, and would operate only during rush hours.

For those of us who happen to be visual learners – or for those who don’t feel like following a paragraph of text about bus routing – maps of the old and new routes are available.

The changes, if ratified by Metro’s board of directors, would likely go into effect in the early summer months, just about when the air conditioning fueled renaissance of bus riding usually commences. What do you think about these proposed changes? Are more rush hour/express buses the answer to sluggish schedules?

After the jump, there’s a large discrepancy in proposed funding levels for a certain national transportation system, and yet more parking developments by the new stadium, plus your usual weekend Red line delay reminder.

Photo by tzakielmuto.