The Metrobus stop at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Chesapeake Street will close in June. The closure of the closest Metrobus stop to GDS will increase commute lengths of students and faculty who take the busses on Wisconsin Avenue to school.
Earlier this spring, decals and signs were posted on the bus stop at Chesapeake Street and Wisconsin and the stop at River Road and Wisconsin, another bus stop close to the school. The signs informed riders the bus stops would close on June 29. With the closures set to occur in the summer, students and faculty will be able to use these bus stops for the remainder of the school year, but they will then need to shift their commutes for next school year.
Students and faculty will be left with two options for bus stops to use after the changes go into effect. The Albemarle Street stop in front of Target, which is three blocks southeast of the school, and the stop on Fessenden Street in front of Rome Pizza and Sub, which is one block north of the school, will become the closest stops to the school.
The closure of the Chesapeake Street bus stop is part of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) overhaul of the whole Metrobus system. According to WMATA, the transit authority launched what it called the Better Bus initiative in June of 2022 in an effort to increase bus efficiency and address inequities in service to disenfranchised communities. About 500 of 10,000 bus stops in the D.C. region will be eliminated on June 29. The closures account for five percent of all stops in the entire system.
The 31, 33 and N2 bus lines all stop at Wisconsin Avenue and Chesapeake Street and bring passengers up and down Wisconsin and Massachusetts Avenues. Freshman Della Blum and sophomores Julian Shishkin and Mason Bronner, who all take the 31 and 33 routes, said their commute to school is currently around thirty minutes. Freshman Harper Lunde and sophomores Viktor Hall and Sean Keeley’s 31 and 33 commutes are both between fifteen and twenty. All six said the elimination would force slight shifts in their commutes.
“[The closure] is probably gonna change my route a bit,” Hall said. “It’s probably gonna make it a bit longer because I’ll have to walk a little farther, so I’ll have to leave earlier in the day.”
Blum will encounter the same difficulties as Hall. “I’m gonna have to walk for an extra ten minutes to take the bus, but it’ll be fine, hopefully,” she said.
Shishkin said the closure will not have much of an impact on his commute. “It doesn’t worry me too much because there are stops every two blocks or so, so I can just get off there,” he said.
Keeley said the Chesapeake Street bus stop closure will cause his afternoon commute to be more tedious.“[Getting back from school] won’t be longer,” he said. “It will just be annoying because I have to walk up the hill more. I might miss the bus coming home.”
Lunde, who takes the southbound 31 and 33 routes, said she would simply get off the bus one stop earlier at Fessenden and Wisconsin.
Bronner said his commute time is determined by how long it takes for the Metrobus to arrive at his stop and pick him up. “I don’t know if cutting off bus stops will actually shorten it as much as they might imagine, but I can see the idea,” he said referring to WMATA’s goal to shorten Metrobus wait times with the removed bus stops .
“It is the closest stop that serves the school. So I wish they would’ve kept it but obviously they didn’t,” GDS environmental stewardship and campus commuting manager Oster said. He also said he wished the 31, 33 and N2 stop at River Road and Wisconsin had also not been closed so a bus stop could still be convenient to the school.
Math teacher Katherine Hekker, who takes the 33 bus, said she hopes that the broader overhaul of the bus system pays off for everyone. “I know they’ve been doing research for years and years and I’ve been taking surveys and I’ve seen them advertise this whole research process, so hopefully it makes things run smoother and keeps fair and good working conditions for all the Metro employees.”