Campus Drive now closed to bus traffic

After closing a section of Campus Drive to private vehicles last month, the university also evicted most buses from the roadway Monday as part of an ongoing pilot program evaluating rerouted traffic.

A university Campus Connector shuttle stopping every 30 minutes in front of the Stamp Student Union will be the only bus line on Campus Drive during the day between the "M" traffic circle and Cole Field House through Aug. 13. Nighttime bus and paratransit service will remain unchanged.

Metrobuses now stop on University Boulevard at Stadium Drive, on Regents Drive west of Paint Branch Drive and on Regents Drive at Stadium Drive. The Regents Drive Parking Garage is serving as the campus' temporary transit hub to replace the student union bus stops.

University officials said the changes have caused no major problems, though they have confused some riders.

Physics graduate student Shantanu Debnath, unaware that his bus stop had moved to Regents Drive, said he watched the 110 Shuttle to the Seven Springs apartments pass him by Monday.

"I really don't know what's going on," Debnath said about the bus route changes and closure of Campus Drive.

Jack Baker, the university's director of operations and maintenance, said it was natural for there to be some level of confusion after a major change but the transition seems to have gone smoothly overall.

"There's no indication of problems that I'm aware of," Baker said, adding there has been "no change in the flow of traffic." He said information explaining the changes was posted on buses, at bus stops and online and his department will continue to collect feedback and data on the change as the trial continues over the next four weeks.

Baker said the pilot program has already allowed the university to learn about ridership and traffic patterns that will be used to plan the future of Campus Drive. Also, initial concerns voiced by commuters about huge traffic headaches on the campus due to the closure have not materialized, Baker said.

The university is experimenting with closing the road to buses as well as cars to assess traffic data that will help answer one of the biggest questions posed in its long-term plans: "What type of transportation do we want on the campus?"

Some administrators would like to see the center of the campus permanently restricted as it is now to improve the ambiance and pedestrian safety.

But Director of Transportation Services David Allen said, based on some complaints he has received this week, buses may be good to have too.

"Most people support the reduction of cars," Allen said, but "they didn't understand why buses couldn't go up Campus Drive."

A spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates Metrobus, also restated the agency's objection to rerouting buses off Campus Drive because it creates longer routes, wasting riders' time and WMATA's money.

"Hopefully, this will be temporary," WMATA spokesman Reggie Woodruff said of the closure.

Graduate student Hasan Jackson had similar thoughts, calling the bus route changes "a little inconvenient." He said his bus commute to the campus from Silver Spring takes between 10 and 15 minutes longer now that the stop on Campus Drive he used frequent no longer exists.

Jackson, who has been attending the university since his undergraduate years, said the absence of cars on Campus Drive "drastically changes the atmosphere" of the area for the better but a few buses weren't a problem.

"It's hard to imagine Campus Drive without cars," he said. "[The change] is good as far as not having cars, but buses, I think, should be allowed."

Some still find Campus Drive's closure to cars needlessly inconvenient.

"It's terrible and unfortunate," said Aiyana Dancy, a student in the university's Upward Bound summer program who has to be dropped off on the campus every day.

Others are more apathetic.

Standing on a sidewalk next to Campus Drive, junior neurophysiology major James Ritchie simply said, "I haven't noticed anything."

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