Metroway

I’ve been waiting on average 10 – 15 minutes, sometimes longer, during rush hour. Buses can get really packed as a result. Lots of improvement needed with this service.

This bus runs from the Braddock Road metro station to the Crystal City metro station. These two stations are on the same metro lines, and are about 8 minutes apart by metro.
So you may ask yourself: why is this bus necessary, if it connects two places that are only 8 minutes apart by metro? The answer is because it stops at places the metro does not, most importantly the Potomac Yards area. Potomac Yards is home to two separate developments: a massive strip mall anchored by a Target, a Shoppers, a Best Buy, and a Barnes and Noble (with many other stores and restaurants and a movie theater, and a massive residential development home to tons of recently built townhomes and apartment complexes.
Currently, this Metroway bus is the only public transit that connects Potomac Yards to the outside world. As somebody who lives in Old Town Alexandria, I like to take this bus back from my shopping trips, so I don’t have to walk with all the crap I bought.
But sometime later this decade, they are going to open a metro stop at Potomac Yard. Then, what purpose will this bus line serve? That is a question that regional transit planners will need to answer.
Oh yeah — while this bus is running on US Route 1 (the Jefferson Davis highway), it runs in the middle on a dedicated lane that is bus-​only. That is cool, and a first for the region, but it only runs in that dedicated lane for a portion of its route. Also, in part because of the cost of building those lanes, this bus is more expensive than a typical metro bus.
For now, this is a cool bus that suffers from having a very limited mission. Three stars.

For my 50^th review, I’d like to pay my respects to one of the nicest Unilocalers in the DC area that we lost earlier this year. Kelly G. was one of the of the DC Unilocal community’s top Unilocalers and was someone who took pleasure in sharing her adventures with us. Kelly seemed to be everywhere and review everything, including crazy stuff like bus routes. One of the routes she Unilocaled about was the now-​defunct 9S route in Crystal City, found here:
So in that same spirit, I will review the successor to the 9S bus route that now serves the area — The Metroway!
The Metroway is the same route as the 9S was, except now expanded down to the Braddock Road metro station. Not only that, the portion that runs on Route 1 in Alexandria has its own dedicated bus lanes that bypass any and all traffic on Route 1! So the trip from Braddock Road to Crystal City metro station is now smooth and fast, and is also served by special Metroway buses that will soon have off-​bus fare collection and all-​door boarding. So getting around the clogged Route 1 and Crystal City areas is now a breeze!
The route runs every day from early mornings to around midnight, with 12 to 20 minute frequencies, according to the time of day and the day of the week. During rush hour, the times will drop to every six minutes along the Arlington portion of the route (the old 9S route) to aid commuters heading to and from Crystal City.
But why does this single bus route have its own style of buses, special lanes and special bus stops? Well, probably because that this route is a showcase for future Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes in the DC area. It is an upgraded bus experience, so all of the hype is probably for marketing reasons. Still, the experience does match the hype, so if you want to travel the mean streets of Crystal City (and eventually Pentagon City as well) in style, taking the Metroway is the way to do it!