Opinion: How to Save GEORGE the Wayward Bus

There are lots of problems with our City’s GEORGE bus service, and as budget crunch time approaches, trail balloons are rising to suggest maybe we should just junk it. After all: divide this past year’s cost by the number of riders and you get $6.50 per passenger, per ride.

Sad to say, starting from the best of intentions, GEORGE has pretty much been a disaster. This past year the City paid out almost half a million dollars to run mostly empty, oversize buses along routes that largely duplicate Metrobus. Sure, some folks do ride GEORGE — either because the 50-cent fare is a bargain compared to Metrobus, or because they can save a block or two walk compared to the Metrobus stop.

Yet just across the City line, Arlington enjoys great success with a similar bus service known as ART – even though they charge a full $1.35 fare. Why?

PROBLEM #1: We bought the wrong bus. From the beginning, the City was carried away with experimental high-tech, gee-whiz machinery, when we should have been studying what already worked in similar municipalities. First we wanted electric buses, and when those weren’t ready for prime time we got saddled with expensive, huge, clean-diesel, voice-emulation wheelchair-accessible vehicles twice the size they should be. When these empty behemoths started prowling neighborhood streets and shaking the bric-a-brac, residents raised a squawk, and GEORGE was banned from Broadmont, to cite the most prominent case.

PROBLEM #2: Unlike a real bus, GEORGE runs a nonsensical circle route in one direction only. So, for example, if you live near Grove Avenue, you might find it convenient to ride the 26W straight to the West Falls Church Metro. But how do you get home? Not the way you got there. GEORGE only goes from Haycock Road to Broad Street to West Street to Poplar Drive to Seaton Lane to Sherrow Avenue to Virginia Avenue back to Broad Street to Oak Street to Lincoln Avenue to West Street to – Grove Avenue. Faster to walk – or in the real world, park your car at the Metro.

PROBLEM #3: The GEORGE schedule is, to use the kindest word I can think of, idiotic. It’s divided into two segments: peak hours and midday hours, “midday” being defined as 10 a.m.—4 p.m. During midday, there’s only one bus route instead of two. Fair enough, since almost everyone who rides GEORGE does so during rush hour. But why would anyone devise a “midday” service that goes places you can’t get to during rush hour? That’s right, from 10-4 GEORGE makes extended runs out to Eden Center and Wilson Boulevard. Before and after those hours, when someone might actually be on the bus, GEORGE stays away from that area. Worse, during the midday run GEORGE abandons almost any effort to provide unique service. With the exception of the link from EFC Metro to Eden Center, it’s all on Broad and Washington streets, same as Metrobus.

Can anything be done? Not if the City continues to choose band-aids over major surgery. Saving GEORGE essentially means starting over:

— Narrow its purpose. The vision of happy residents taking GEORGE to do their shopping and dine out is a pipe dream. Residents will only ride GEORGE to get to the Metro to go to work. So run GEORGE during rush hours and park it the rest of the time.

— Keep away from Metrobus. GEORGE should never run on any streets served by Metrobus. Instead, run it through City neighborhoods off the beaten path (and no, running on Park Street instead of Broad Street doesn’t count).

— Lose the Big Bertha bodies. We need mini-buses costing a fraction of the current model. And forget about expensive frills such as the high-tech voice emulation calling out street names. GEORGE is for City residents going to and from the Metro – we know where we live, for crying out loud.

— Run the bus in both directions, and skip the circle routes. Instead, run back and forth between WFC and EFC Metro stations. One bus could run through neighborhoods north of Broad and the other bus south of Broad.

— Mark the bus stops to clearly show what time GEORGE will arrive. Alexandria did this with its DASH bus and ridership immediately rose dramatically. (Of course it only works if the bus actually comes when the sign says it will.)

— And (here’s a ringer) make GEORGE free. What? That’s un-American! Right, it’s more like what they do in Australia – and Old Town Alexandria. At last year’s ridership level it would mean a loss of some $35,000 – minus the cost of collecting that $35,000 (which, with the high-tech Smartcard readers, probably cost close to $35,000).

— And finally: don’t change the name. I like it.

(Photo: Adam E. Moreira)