The Rhode Island Avenue and Brookland stations will be closed for structural repairs for 45 days beginning tomorrow, July 21. These stations link the eastern portion of the Red Line, connecting parts of Montgomery County, Md. to downtown Washington, DC. A transit system that has already lost ridership faces more bad news.

Yet the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) has come up with a comprehensive plan to minimize problems during the closure. It includes an experiment with a pop-up bus lane that might prepare the way for future dedicated lanes.

“Our goal with the installation of temporary bus lanes along Rhode Island Avenue is to support WMATA’s planned repairs,” Jeff Marootian, Director of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), told me. “Mayor Bowser and I want to make sure that transit riders, pedestrians, and bicyclists can still safely navigate streets.” A multi-modal, complete-streets approach is baked into this plan, and increasingly integral to DDOT’s philosophy.

The pop-up bus lane, for the G9 bus, will greatly benefit commuters traveling from the Rhode Island Avenue station into the heart of the city. “I am really encouraged that they want to do a trial; I’m hoping that it’ll be a good proof of concept to show people how positive this can be for bus riders and how good it is for drivers too,” said Dan Reed, a transportation planner and advocate (and founder of the blog Just Up the Pike).

Problems in Montgomery County, Md.

Yet some Montgomery County activists feel the plan is inadequate for riders coming from north of Fort Totten and wish it could have included an additional dedicated bus lane along a north/south route. “Temporary bus lines on Rhode Island Avenue won’t be particularly helpful to folks who live in Maryland and are accessing the city,” said Pete Tomao, the Montgomery County Advocacy Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

One important point is that many riders of the northern section of the Red Line, from Takoma to Glenmont, can take the train to Fort Totten and switch to the Green or Yellow Line to be whisked to the Gallery Place station in the middle of DC. To avoid overcrowding, Metro will be adding additional Green and Yellow Line trains.

The MARC train from Silver Spring to Union Station will also prove invaluable, although it is limited to peak-commuter hours.

The real problem arises for those Red Line riders from the north wishing to access stations from Brookland to Judiciary Square. Many will need to take a shuttle bus. While Metro has efficiently provided shuttle service when portions of track are shut down, the shuttles operating in mixed traffic invariably means delays.

“In my experience from the prior shuttles . . . it was not good mitigation; it would take 45 minutes or more in traffic” to reach Union Station from northern Red Line stations, said Tomao.

Wishing for better bus service

Montgomery County is largely leaving mitigation of the Red Line shutdown to Metro. “The only things Montgomery County is doing is helping to publicize the closure and selling MARC tickets at our TRiPs and Mobile stores,” Esther Bowring, Community Relations Manager of the county Department of Transportation, told me in an e-mail.

Although Montgomery County has been groundbreaking in innovative express buses, and in transportation demand management, the county has failed, as of yet, to implement dedicated lanes. An extensive bus rapid transit (BRT) service is planned , with the first line opening in 2020. Yet “there’s no reason why” a temporary bus lane now to accommodate Red Line riders “couldn’t be a step toward permanent changes,” said Tomao.

Pop up bus lanes work in Massachusetts

Experiments with pop-up dedicated lanes elsewhere have proven surprisingly effective, and even translated into permanent bus lanes. Changes perceived to disrupt traffic invariably encounter resistance, but a trial run can counteract this. “People are anxious” about “any changes that might be seen as inconveniencing drivers,” said Reed. Transit advocates, “have to make that case, to reassure people, we can do this in a way that will actually be better for every travel mode.”

The experiment on Rhode Island Avenue – although not as long a route as many people wanted – “is as much about convincing the public, as it is about the powers that be, that they can do a pop-up bus lane, and they can try this out in other places,” said Reed.

In 2017, Everett, Massachusetts experimented with bus lanes that quickly became permanent, which has since inspired pop-up lanes in Boston. Such lanes can be hugely popular, increasing transit ridership and reassuring drivers that roads will remain accessible.

Will the pop-up lane on Rhode Island Avenue spur a similar move toward dedicated bus lanes in the DC region? “We are going to evaluate closely the performance of these lanes and the public sentiment around them,” said Marootian. “It does present us with the opportunity to evaluate how well they function more broadly.”

While some parking will be removed along Rhode Island Avenue, the number of people moving in these new lanes, and the speed of the buses, more than justifies this. “We are expecting as many as 60 buses per hour using lanes during the morning and evening rush hour commutes,” said Marootian. “Because those lanes will be dedicated to buses, they will move more efficiently during those times.”

To boldly go . . .

The shutdown of Red Line stations will be a scene of frustration, but may spur a better system. The experiment with a dedicated bus lane just might blossom into a future of speedier, more efficient transit that takes cars off the road. Perhaps this, in turn, will inspire other cities to boldly experiment with bus lanes.

Photo of a Metrobus by Sam Kittner for Mobility Lab.