Photo by the amazing Mr T in DC, via Flickr
Metro buses don’t typically give people the warm fuzzies, although Angelique has previously waxed poetic about the X2 in this space. Much ink and pixel has been devoted to WMATA’s delays and inconveniences, not to mention the heartbreaking fatalities. On Twitter, there is @unsuckdcmetro, a feed devoted to highlighting and retweeting the bad –and sometimes the good– of our Metropolitan bus and rail system. And specifically, there is much to complain about the unpredictability of the route whose praises I will sing, the D6.
Last night, there was no sight more beautiful in my eyes than that of the eastbound D6, making a wide right turn onto 35th street NW. Yes, yes, I know: 35th street NW is NOWHERE near the Hill (or home, for me), but that was part of why seeing the D6 emerging gallantly through the rainy mists was so special. My bus was here and shockingly on time; there were seats open; the driver would soon give me some sort of sign of life (today, a smile!); I would soon be home.
The D6 route as we know it started in the mid-1990s (thank you, Wikipedia), when the D2 was rerouted to go east only until Dupont Circle. Since then, the line crosses the city from Sibley Hospital in Palisades to the Stadium-Armory Metro station, at the easternmost end of Capitol Hill. The bus passes with somewhat-surprising regularity: you can expect a bus roughly every half an hour. Once safely within the sometimes-stinky confines of the D6 moving eastward, you can take in the quaintly expensive Georgetown rowhomes; cross the Dumbarton bridge and say hello to the buffalo; get caught up in the chic swirls of the Dupont Circle area; feel your stomach lurch forward as the bus attempts a death-defying left turn onto K Street; take in the busy downtown scenes; speed past the DC Central Kitchen and send a good thought to those who are warming themselves with a meal there; “enjoy” the bumper-car ride past Union Station; swing around Stanton Park; and, as you move east past the calm streets of our neighborhood, suddenly feel like your blood pressure drops a little, because you are home.
Another part of the D6’s history: the DC Night Riders (http://www.dcnightriders.org/). Back then, they wanted to cut off service at midnight – we argued for quite some time how this would greatly impact riders, especially overnight workers and people going to the hospitals at either end of the route. Best “little” bus route in town, if you ask me.
Agreed, Maria! It sometimes has its issues, like phantom GPS busses that never show up, but the D6 gives us access to most of the hot spots in town. And supplies plenty of interesting (inadvertent) eavesdropping opportunities along the way.
I love the D6 with it’s sleek new buses, but I don’t like how it always pulls away from the curb as I run towards it (damn you, next bus)!
My favorite bus is the 96, despite it’s proclivity to tardiness as well…I love the cruise down East Capitol, the Capitol Building, past Union Station, to LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale, to U Street and other points west!