The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority will overhaul D.C.’s bus system Sunday, adding connections for Foggy Bottom and introducing new route names.
WMATA is replacing Foggy Bottom’s most heavily trafficked routes with new ones that will connect to neighborhoods like Brookland and Edgewood in Northeast D.C. The authority began collecting data on priorities and transit usage from D.C. area residents in November 2022, which found need to provide more riders access to high frequency services, have lines connect riders to essential services like grocery stores and assist commuter lines in recovering from pandemic ridership lows.
WMATA Regional Mobility Program Manager William Jones said ridership data between 2019 and 2022 indicated that travel patterns shifted during the pandemic, contributing people opting to make nine and a half million trips privately rather than taking public transit.
An equity review states the new network addresses these findings by increasing midday, evening and weekend service, providing more residents access to frequent services — routes that run every 20 minutes or fewer — and linking each end of the routes to hospitals, schools, grocery stores and jobs.
WMATA released the proposed network in 2024 and approved the final network in December of that year. The new system goes into effect June 29.
Here’s the breakdown of how the “Better Bus Network” will impact Foggy Bottom:
Terminated Foggy Bottom stops
Planners eliminated 527 bus stops across the District — about 5 percent of all stops — including the stop East of the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue, L Street and 25th Street NW across from St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church. The stop serves routes 38B and 33, west to Ballston and north to Friendship Heights.
They also eliminated two stops along I Street at 19th and 20th streets across from James Monroe Park and near the Embassy of Uruguay. Those served routes 33 and 32, west to Potomac Park.
WMATA Senior Vice President of Planning and Program Development Allison Davis said the authority prioritized improving roadways with significant bus traffic. She said they used factors like distance between stops, ridership levels, accessibility and nearby facilities to determine whether to eliminate them.
Davis said when stops were flagged as too close, planners chose which stops to preserve or eliminate based on which stop had higher ridership, lack of sidewalks and distances from each stop to nearby “anchor” locations that generate consistent traffic — like a bank or hospital.
“It really is a trade-off between accessibility for future riders and faster service for people who are already on board,” Davis said.
New Foggy Bottom routes
Before the redesign, routes 31, 33, 32, 36, 42, 43, 3F, 3Y and 16Y served Foggy Bottom. According to a WMATA page, that list will become: ART 55, A49, A58, C85, F19, D1X, D10, D70, D74, D80, D82 and D96 through a blend of consolidations, route extensions and eliminations.
Planners consolidated 31 and 33 into two high-frequency routes, D80 and D82. D80 offers service between Friendship Heights and Union Station, while D82 provides service between Friendship Heights and Foggy Bottom during rush hours in the morning and evening.
The former Pennsylvania Avenue routes 32 and 36 are now served by the limited-stop D1X and D10. D1X runs every 20 minutes along Pennsylvania Avenue between Archives and Naylor Road Metro Stations, and D10 serves Southern Avenue to Foggy Bottom along the same road.
Davis said the authority worked with the District Department of Transportation on modifying parking zones and ensuring smooth vehicle circulation when sending buses up and down New Hampshire Avenue between Virginia Avenue and Washington Circle to the route’s end at the Kennedy Center.
WMATA replaced the 42 and 43 with four routes, D70, D74, D10 and D96. D70 and D10 run through Foggy Bottom to Farragut Square every 12 to 20 minutes, while the D74 provides 15 to 20 minute service from the State Department to Brookland. The D96 connects Bethesda and Downtown but stops short of Foggy Bottom on the weekend, ending at Dupont Circle Metro Station.
A58 and ART 55 supplanted express routes 3F and 3Y on Langston Boulevard. A58 provides 30-minute service between Seven Corners and Farragut Square during peak periods, and ART 55 delivers all-day service between East Falls Church and Rosslyn.
Community feedback and resolutions approved by a local body prompted WMATA last year to extend the D74 and D12 — now D10 — routes to the Kennedy Center and restore stops along 23rd Street. The resolution said the requested changes would save some riders up to 30 minutes of walking.
The C85 will connect Foggy Bottom to the Palisades and Chevy Chase between 7 and 8 a.m. on weekdays, replacing the M4, which does not currently travel downtown.
The A49 will replace the morning and afternoon-only MetroExtra 16Y along Columbia Pike. The route will run weekday peak-period service every 20 minutes between Culmore and Metro Center, traveling East into D.C. in the morning and West toward Culmore in the afternoon.
Route naming and other changes
WMATA also abandoned their bus route name scheme — a mix of impromptu names and those inherited from the District’s former streetcar system — for a standardized prefix and suffix-based style.
Each new route begins with a single-letter prefix denoting its service area: “A” for Arlington/Alexandria, “C” (crosstown) or “D” (downtown) for D.C., “F” for Fairfax City, Fairfax County and Falls Church, “M” for Montgomery County and “P” for Prince George’s County. A trailing “X” indicates a limited-stop route.
Riders can plan trips on the new system, view neighborhood maps or input their current route to see which routes they might begin using when the new system is in place on WMATA’s Better Bus Network page.
