The District is closer to having a dedicated bus lane along 16th Street NW, one of the busiest commuting routes connecting suburban Montgomery County and upper- and midtown D.C. neighborhoods to downtown Washington.
The work, to be completed in a year, comes after a decade of planning and will give buses priority in the corridor and improve the commutes of thousands of transit users. Advocates say the upgrades should help reduce problems with bus bunching and crowding on Metro’s S-Line buses, which during non-pandemic times carried as many as 20,000 passengers daily.
“It will add a little bit more speed,” said Aaron Landry, a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission who represents neighborhoods adjacent to 16th and Q streets NW. “Hopefully [this] will allow the bus service to be more reliable.”
Riders could save up to three minutes in travel time with the infrastructure changes — and up to six minutes if the improvements are accompanied by other changes that reduce dwelling at bus stops such as an off-board payment system and an all-door-entry system, according to projections from the D.C. Department of Transportation.
The project stretches from H Street NW to Arkansas Avenue NW, the most congested portion of the route. The plan calls for a bus lane southbound during the morning rush hour and northbound during the evening rush.
The dedicated transit lanes will not be continuous along the entire 2.7 miles. In the morning, southbound buses will be able to travel on the dedicated lane from Arkansas Avenue to U Street, then merge into traffic through Dupont Circle and under Scott Circle, and travel in the bus lane again from M Street to I Street. Buses traveling northbound in the afternoon rush will travel in a dedicated lane for most of the stretch, except from M Street to P Street and from U Street to Irving Street.
Other improvements should help move buses faster along those segments where a lane isn’t available, officials said. There will be some consolidation of bus stops, an expansion of rush-hour parking restrictions and new left-turn restrictions at various intersections. Rush hour times also will be extended: The morning rush will be 7 to 10 a.m.; the afternoon rush will be 3:30 to 7 p.m.
DDOT Director Jeff Marootian said the goal is to improve the quality of transit in the corridor where more than half of the people traveling during the peak hours are bus riders. It also is to grow the city’s bus lane network.
Buses using the future 16th Street bus lane will connect to bus lanes installed last year on a stretch of H and I streets NW downtown, which according to city data improved the speed of buses. During the summer, the city announced more than three miles of additional bus-only lanes, including the first such lane east of the Anacostia River to be completed this month. Another project is adding a 0.6-mile bus lane along 14th Street NW, and the city is pursuing a $122 million plan to redesign K Street NW to add about two miles of bus lanes.
“We are adding efficiency to several bus routes, which will in turn affect the entire city,” Marootian said.
Adding bus lanes to 16th Street has been a popular concept among transit users for years. Transit advocates, including Metro, advocated for bus lanes as crucial to providing reliable service.
The project also faced some critics, including drivers who use the route and some residents of the corridor who pleaded for change to some aspects of the project that will reduce already scarce parking. About 90 parking spaces will be eliminated during morning rush, most of them south of U Street. Another 42 will be removed in the afternoon and 31 midday, according to the city.
Ronnie Kweller, a resident of 16th and U Street NW, said she supports the transit improvements, but questions the need to eliminate parking during the morning rush hour on the non-rush hour side of the road. Parking on the non-rush hour side has not impeded the free flow of traffic in the past, she said.
“Traffic flows smoothly so it is just a needless burden on the people who live here in a neighborhood where it’s already extremely difficult to park,” Kweller said.
She said street parking has been an issue in the three decades she has lived in the area and even more scarce in recent years as residential and commercial development boomed on nearby 14th Street. Street cleanup restrictions on some days of the week, along with existing rush hour parking restrictions already create challenges. The bus lanes would mean “literally no place to park,” between 7 in the morning and when the rush hour ends, she said.
“You’re going to put another 80 cars on the road looking for parking every morning,” she said. “You’re gonna just drive around, wasting your time, wasting gas, polluting the air? It makes no sense.”
Marootian said parking removal is necessary to ensure improvements in bus performance and reliability in the corridor. In a letter to the neighborhood commission last year, he said curbside parking during the peak in the nonpeak direction reduces the number of travel lanes from two to one, “resulting in an unsatisfactory level of service for vehicle and bus operations. Motorists experience significant queuing. Buses remain in the traffic stream, which leads to bus bunching and slow travel speeds.”
In an interview, Marootian said the current plan comes with significant public support and will result in improvements to “the quality of the bus experience for a high number of passengers that travel the corridor every day.”
The city is expected to award the construction contract this month, DDOT said in a statement Thursday. Construction is expected to begin before the end of the year and to be completed next year. The work includes new lane markings and signage, pedestrian safety improvements at several intersections, new accessible ramps and the creation of bus zones.
Although traffic impacts are anticipated, officials said, the plan is to make progress in the next few months as low traffic volumes continue while many are still working from home due to the pandemic.
“We’re seeing lower volumes of traffic currently, and that will likely continue, at least through the beginning of our construction and very possibly through much of the duration of that construction,” Marootian said. “We’ll be working to minimize the impact [on traffic] and of course to minimize the disruption to the residents along the corridor.”
The corridor has undergo several improvements in recent years, including the installation of a system that gives priority to buses at some intersections, making it easier for them to stay on schedule. S-line buses are equipped with the technology and operating at all 33 signalized intersections in corridor. DDOT this year added signals, realigned crosswalks and expanded sidewalks at the 16th Street traffic circle at the border with Montgomery County.
Adding the bus lanes would bring the most significant improvements to benefit transit riders, which some people say are long overdue.
“Neighbors are frustrated that it hasn’t happened yet because these people have been told for years that it’s coming,” said Landry, who rides the 16th Street buses. “It will be comforting once this actually finally happens after years and years of talk.”
