After a series of public meetings over the past two months, the District Department of Transportation has finally revealed the routing of the first Circulator bus which will travel across the Anacostia River.
During a meeting in June, residents told DDOT that they preferred the Circulator to cross over the 11th Street Bridges versus South Capitol Street — as a result, the Department went back to the drawing board and crafted a separate new route instead of the original plan, which would have simply extended the current Union Station-Navy Yard line. (Originally, the new route would have crossed the South Capitol Street Bridge and stopped at the Anacostia and Congress Heights Metro stations.) Some residents, as DCentric reports, aired concerns during the latest public meeting that the route’s new configuration — down Good Hope Road — might not adequately serve the area and could be too duplicative of current Metrobus routes.
Regardless, service on the route is slated to begin on October 3. The extension is the first phase in an aggressive long-term Circulator expansion plan which calls for the installation of ten additional routes around the District by the end of 2020.
The presentation delivered by DDOT at the recent public meetings can be read below:
