Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Burleith Residents Seek to Reroute Buses

Shaking Houses Cause of Concern in Area Neighborhood

By Erin Ross Hoya Staff Writer

Residents of Burleith and Glover Park, bothered by “shaking” houses, are looking for a way to change the route of the D2 bus through their neighborhoods. The changes could affect the daily transportation habits of approximately 1,000 people in the area, possibly presenting concerns for students and those who use the buses.

The residents’ proposal, according to Bonnie Hardy, president of the Burleith Citizens Association, is to move the line to 35th Street, eliminating one stop and moving the line to the boundaries of Burleith. Currently, the bus route runs through S Street, which is located in the middle of town.

This change could mean an additional walk of up to two blocks for most of the Burleith citizens, Hardy said. Hardy said Burleith has about 100 people a day that use the D2 bus.

Burleith residents want to “reduce the shaking of houses,” which is especially bad on 37th and S Streets, according Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Peter Pulsifer in Burleith District 2E03. He also said the ANC has been receiving complaints from these neighborhoods since as early as three years ago.

However, according to Yea Afolabi (COL ’00), rerouting could be a problem for students. Most students don’t have cars, she said, making it hard to get to internships and other jobs in the city without proper transportation. The rerouting of even a few blocks could be dangerous, especially at nighttime, when students would be forced to walk an added distance in the dark, she said.

About 900 Glover Park residents use the D2 bus, said Pulsifer. As of yet, the Glover Park Citizens’ Association has no official stance on the situation, although its members have had meetings with the Burleith Citizen’s Association to discuss possible avenues of action, including rerouting the buses to get D2 out of Burleith, according to Ariadne Henry, a resident of Glover Park.

The city streets are not structured to handle the weight of the large buses, Pulsifer said.

Henry said he sees the conditions of the streets as a problem and said that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, commonly referred to as Metro, has been very attentive to citizens’ complaints, suggesting using different size buses. “We definitely need their help there,” she said.

The Metro Transit Board held hearings this fall concerning this issue, and their solution has been to bring smaller buses to the area. However, smaller buses mean more buses are needed to serve the same amount of people. The metro has ordered 40 eight-ton buses, roughly half the size of the old ones, according to Hardy. Hardy said the buses have not yet arrived.

Hardy said that one suggestion for Glover Park is to keep the larger buses for rush hour and then add the smaller ones for all other times. Hardy said the problem is such that it would not be solved in rush hour even if the buses were smaller in size.

The shaking of the houses is of “growing concern” for students, Afolabi said. However, she said, “We need to preserve [the route as it is].” Rerouting the buses would be too inconvenient for those students who made use of them, she said.

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