Better Living Thru Better Circulation

A new circulator bus route will be added to the Mall beginning this week, the WaPo reports. Like the north-south line on 7th St. NW and the K St. east-west line, the new line will cost a buck to ride and run every ten minutes or so. Buses will travel along the perimeter of the Mall and will shuttle tourist and others from museum to museum. Watch-out Tourmobile.

As for the other lines, the east-west route served 1,345 riders per day in February up from September 2005 when that figure was 985. Rather than terminating at the convention center on L St., the line will go up to O St., near the Giant supermarket. Given how crowded the 70 bus is, why not extend the line up to U Street where the Metro station is? Until the bus brings people to U St., it always will be a bus to nowhere. Some mornings DC Bubble is the only rider on that bus.

The average number of weekday trips for the north-south route last month was 3,892, compared with 2891 in September. This is the best bus in Washington. Why it took all these years to figure out that a connection between Georgetown and Union Station is needed is beyond us.