Happy Birthday DC Circulator!
While I am no fan of the DC Circulator, I prefer to call it the Circulating Joke, I do have to give it begrudging respect today, its one year old and actualy exceeding its ridership targets.
The Circulator is claiming it provided 1.6 million total trips averaging a 9 percent increase every month and around 7,000 passengers per day now. While that might have been a low-ball number to begin with and its not known if that is a profitable number of riders, there is clear evidence where a good portion of the increase ridership is coming from - tourists headed to the National Mall. To quote the DC examiner:
The biggest ridership increased occurred when a loop circling the National Mall opened in March. Ridership jumped from 122,152 in February to 171,229 in March.
Is that unfair competition to the Tuourmoibile, which has an exclusive agreements with the National Park Service since the 1960's or great alternative to overpriced and un-air conditioned $20 per person monopoly? Not sure.
Today I am sure that it’s the cheapest ride in DC. To celebrate its birthday, rides on the Circulator are free today. I just hope they don't count the free rides in their overall ridership figures.
A $0.25 discount to Metrobus when the city is spending $5.5 million on the Circulator is offensive enough.
Post Author:
wayan | 03:20 PM |
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I do think that the route around the National Mall is a waste of taxpayer dollars. If the fat cornbed's from Iowa can't walk 1/2 mile that's their problem :-)
However, the other two routes (especially the East-West Route) do serve a real transportation purpose. I ride all the time, and I remember when it first started most buses were empty and now even the off peak buses have people and the peak hour buses are standing room only. The DC Circulator should spread and maybe it will get Metrobus to improve because for all the talk about Metrobus improving they still have stops every block and the buses don't run frequently enough. In conclusion, the DC Circulator fills a niche in DC's transportation network and for me that's good enough!
