Tag Archives: Washington DC

Bus Photo of the Month: December 2024

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New Flyer XD40 2124

Location: Duke Ellington Bridge, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: District Department of Transportation (DDOT)
Date of Photo: May 4, 2020

At the end of this month, the DC Circulator will cease operations after nearly 15 years of operation.  The service was started in July 2006 on two routes, with the goal of creating an “simple” and “easily navigable” bus system to supplement the existing Metrobus network.  In order to meet these goals, bus routes operated every 10 minutes around the clock on routes that connected major destinations around Downtown DC.  The system grew, often as select Metrobus routes were converted to Circulator operation to take advantage of lower subsidies and operating costs.  A National Mall route was also established following the discontinuation of the Tourmobile service that held the exclusive rights to offer guided tours within that area under a contract with the National Park Service.  

The discontinuation of the service can be attributed to several reasons.  Ridership has not rebounded since the Covid-19 pandemic, but arguably, many Circulator routes do not warrant 10 minute headways from early morning until late night (or 3 AM in the case of select routes on Friday and Saturday nights).  However, changing the headways was considered to be a non-starter on account of wanting the service to remain “simple.”  Furthermore, DDOT wished to have all eight wards of the city served by at least one route, a goal that was never achieved, but some wards simply do not have any activity generators that would warrant the level of service the Circulator committed to providing on all of its routes.

Service is currently running on 20 minute headways on five routes through December 31, 2024.  After that date, RATP DEV, which is the contracted operator for the service, will commence its final wind down procedures, such that the contract can be fully cancelled by March 2025.  

Have you ever taken the DC Circulator?

For more photos of the DC Circulator , please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: October 2024

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Gillig Advantage 4058

Location: Rockville Pike near Wooton Parkway, Rockville, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Ride On (Montgomery County Transit)
Date of Photo: June 21, 2024

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the launch of Ride On Extra in Montgomery County, Maryland.  Ride On Extra is the branded service for Ride On’s “premium” bus routes.  The first route to operate under this banner is Route 101, a limited stop service along MD 355 between Lakeforest and Medical Center.  The trip time on the 101, both advertised and actual, is noticeably shorter than the underlying local service on routes 46 and 55, and depending on the circumstances, can even give the parallel Red Line a run for its money.

Last month, Ride On launched the first two routes of the Great Seneca Transit Network (GTSN), a series of improvements to the transit service in the “Great Seneca Science Corridor”, an area that includes locations such as the Shady Grove Metro, Shady Grove Hospital, Universities at Shady Grove, the Rio Center, and Kentlands.  These two routes have colored names, Lime and Pink; I believe this is to go along with the colored names that are also being used for the “Flash BRT” service that Ride On operates in the Route 29 corridor and will introduce to other corridors in the future.  Unlike the 101, the Lime and Pink operate seven days a week with service frequencies varying between 15 and 30 minutes depending upon the day of the week and time of day.  

Ride On is also engaged in the “Ride On Reimagined” project, which is a network redesign project that may introduce more Ride On Extra routes in the future as well.  It will definitely be interesting to see how Ride On Extra, in conjunction with the Flash BRT and other improvements, will change the transit landscape in Montgomery County.  

For more photos of Ride On’s Gillig Advantage 40 foot buses, please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: August 2024

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Orion V 9641

Location: Friendship Heights Station, Chevy Chase, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: June 2000

Since I went way back in the past for the Rail Photo of the Month for August 2024 and chose a photo taken using film from the early days of this website, I thought I would do the same for the Bus Photo of the Month.  There most of what you see in this photo or in the surrounding area has changed in the ensuing 24 years, except for the bus terminal itself.  For starters, the 36 was extended to Naylor Road Station when it opened on January 13, 2001, and was ultimately truncated to Foggy Bottom in August of 2014.  The 1992 Orion V buses would be retired in the early 2000s, though newer Orion Vs would remain in WMATA’s fleet until 2019.

The shopping center seen behind the bus has been renovated twice since this photo was taken.  Although not visible in this photo, Mazza Gallerie was behind and to the left of where I was standing until it was demolished in 2023 to be redeveloped.  What was then a Hecht’s department store was directly to my left when this photo was taken, closed in 2005, and has since been redeveloped into the Shops at Wisconsin Place.  Other projects have also taken place or are ongoing in the general vicinity of the Friendship Heights station.  

Perhaps it also goes without mention, but photography technology has improved significantly since I took this photo, digital photography has been accessible to nearly everyone for many years now, and I’d like to think my photography skills have improved since I took this picture.  What do you think?

For more photos of WMATA’s 1992 Orion V Buses, please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: September 2023

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Gillig Phantom 5418

Location: River Road at Landy Lane, Bethesda, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Ride On Montgomery County Transit
Date of Photo: March 24, 2001

This weekend, Mrs. Oren’s Transit Page and I are celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary!  Mrs. OTP is very supportive of my hobby and this website, and this has been demonstrated in various ways over the course of our relationship.  One of the ways is that as a bit of a gag on our wedding website, I included instructions for how to get to our wedding venue by public transit.  We weren’t sure if anyone would actually attempt to do this, but it turns out several of our guests did in fact take a combination of Metrorail and Ride On to come celebrate us on our special day.  

To mark this occasion, I chose a photo of a bus operating on the route our guests were instructed to take to reach our venue.  Although it is technically a Metrobus route, it is operated by Ride On on weekends and most holidays.  Since our wedding took place on a Sunday, it seemed appropriate to share a photo of a Ride On bus serving the route.  

Have you ever used public transit to travel to a wedding?

For more photos of Ride On’s Gillig Phantoms, please click here.  

Some Things Are Worth Waiting For…

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New Flyer XE60 19506
Very observant visitors to this site might have noticed two things recently.  First, it has been a very long time (nearly two years in fact) since any announcements of new photos being posted to Oren’s Transit Page have been made.  Second, the January 2023 Bus Photo of the Month came from a city that was not included on Oren’s Transit Page before.  The reasons for this are several fold.  In 2021, travel was slowly resuming and the Oren’s Transit Page Baby (as he was known then) required a level of care that was age-appropriate but one that does not facilitate frequent website updates.  In 2022, travel really took off again, as my travels took me not only up and down the Northeast Corridor but to the Florida panhandle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Israel, and Greece.  As you can imagine, travels that extensive generate lots of photos, which in turn, take time to organize, touch up, caption, and post.  The good news is I’ve made some headway on that front, and I believe any photos I took prior to May 2022 are now online.

The “highlights” from this update in my opinion in “chronological” order are:

The rest of 2022’s photos are still to come, and I’ve already taken one trip within the US in 2023 and I’m sure more are to come, so stay tuned.  The photos from all those travels will be posted.  Eventually.

Here is the full listing of where new photos were added to the site, with new sections highlighted in bold and italics.  

WMATA Silver Line Phase Two Grand Opening

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Yesterday marked what is likely the last significant extension of the Washington Metrorail system.  At about 2 PM, the second phase of the Silver Line opened to the public, extending the line by about 11 miles from Whiele-Reston East to Ashburn.  A total of six new stations opened, including one at Dulles Airport, bringing the total number of stations in the system to 97 and the total system mileage to 129 miles.  (A 98th station, Potomac Yard, is an infill station that is scheduled to open in early 2023 so while one more station will be constructed, no track miles will be added.)

Unfortunately, I was unable to get out to the new stations in daylight and the weather was less than cooperative, which meant I was unable to really appreciate the new trackage.  I think part of the excitement surrounding a new transit line is seeing something new from the train, especially when it runs above ground as the Silver Line extension does, and I missed out on that yesterday.  I do intend to ride again in daylight very soon, but there is also something special about doing it on day one.  The weather and lighting conditions also made for challenging photography conditions, but I think some of these images are decent (even by my usual standards) and I am sharing them now.

Interior display on a 7000 series train showing all the stations on both phases of the Silver Line, November 15, 2022

View of the main terminal at Dulles Airport as seen from the Metrorail station platform, November 15, 2022

Train arriving at Dulles Airport with the terminal building in the background, November 15, 2022

Alstom 6132 at Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Train arriving at Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Kawasaki 7510 leaving Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station Mezzanine, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station Mezzanine, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station Mezzanine, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station entrance pylon, November 15, 2022

6000 Series train showing the “planning name” of the Ashburn station on its destination sign rather than the actual name, November 15, 2022

Breda Rehab 3030 at Herndon Station, November 15, 2022

Your webmaster showing off a ceremonial station opening pennant in front of the newly updated Metro map

 

Bus Photo of the Month: October 2022

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Gillig Advantage/BRT 4060

Location: Rockville Pike at Edmonston Drive, Rockville, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Montgomery County 
Date of Photo: October 11, 2017

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of Ride On Extra, a limited stop service operated by Ride On between Lakeforest Mall and Medical Center Metro Station along MD Route 355.  The route, also known as Route 101, only makes 13 stops compared to the 80 stops on underlying local services on routes 46 and 55, significantly cutting travel times along this busy corridor.  The buses also feature onboard WiFi and USB charging ports.  

Service was suspended at various times during the pandemic and my travel patterns haven’t given me occasion to use this route recently, but I found the route to be quite useful when I have been able to use it.  This route is a precursor to bus rapid transit service on this corridor, and like the Route 129, this route will be discontinued when that service begins.  However, with the MD 355 BRT line only in the preliminary engineering stage, it is unlikely that construction will begin prior to the 2025 to 2028 timeframe.  In other words, it looks like Ride On Extra will be celebrating a few more anniversaries before it is replaced by Flash BRT service.

For more photos of Ride On Gillig Advantage buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: September 2022

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New Flyer XDE40 7098

Location: 9th Street, NW at Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: April 11, 2011

Beginning with the launch of its first “MetroExtra” route in 2007, WMATA attempted to brand the new service with specially painted buses.  This branding eventually evolved into what are often referred to as the “MetroLocal” and “MetroExtra” schemes where most of the bus is painted silver with the back portion being painted red for local buses and blue for MetroExtra buses.  However, after about 14 years of the current schemes being in use, Metro is repainting all of the MetroExtra buses into the “standard” red Local scheme.  Instead, passengers will need to rely on the destination sign to identify MetroExtra services.

I suspect some of this stems from the fact that blue MetroExtra buses often wound up on local routes and vice versa, and I mentioned this as a reason I tend to dislike branded bus schemes in a post six years ago.  Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the current Metrobus paint schemes and hope that when the livery is next updated that it is an improvement over the current one.

For more photos of WMATA New Flyer XDE40 buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: August 2022

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Orion V 82

Location: National Airport Station, Arlington, VA
Operator of Vehicle: Alexandria Transit Company (DASH)
Date of Photo: June 16, 2019

From the time of its establishment in 1984, DASH in Alexandria, VA has operated buses manufactured by Orion Industries until exactly one month ago.  On July 1 of this year, DASH ran a ceremonial farewell trip to its last Orion built buses, two Orion V units similar to the one in this photo.  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this event, but from what I’ve seen, DASH made the event a special one.  The headsigns created for the special trips were definitely noteworthy.  In addition to marking the end of the Orion era at DASH, the retirement of the Orion Vs marks the end of high floor bus operations at DASH as the entire fleet is now made up of low floor vehicles.  

Orion ended manufacturing of the Orion V in 2009.  Considering the standard lifespan of a transit bus in North America is typically in the 12 to 15 year range, it is not surprising that the last Orion Vs still standing are gradually being retired now, with only a handful still in operation.  Given that Orion announced on April 25, 2012 that it would no longer take any orders for new buses and that its factories would close when outstanding orders were fulfilled, it should be expected that Orion built buses will no longer be plying the streets of North America within the next few years as the last Orion VIIs built by the company upon its closure are removed from service.

For more photos of DASH buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: June 2022

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Flxible Metro-B 9256

Location: K Street, NW at Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: July 16, 2003

On the occasion of my birthday month, I thought it would be fun to feature a photo of my first “home route.”  As the name implies, a home route is the route that goes by where you live and therefore take at the start or end of most trips.  For many people, their first home route isn’t one they can necessarily choose, as infants or toddlers have no agency in deciding where to live.

I believe that because my parents and I lived next to a bus line and subway station and used transit for much of our local travels rather than driving is a primary reason I am interested in transit.  We frequently took the L2 bus, pictured here, or the Red Line to go to a variety of different places.  I remember the original incarnation of the L4 and have vague memories of an L5 existing before the current (albeit suspended) L1 was introduced.  The L4 has since been discontinued, reinstated, and discontinued again, and the L2’s southern terminal in Downtown Washington and alignment south of Woodley Park has changed considerably in recent years.  However, this was and always will be the first bus route I relied on regularly.

What’s your home route?  Any special stories to share about it?  Share your answers in the comments!

For more photos of WMATA Flxible Metro-B buses, please click here.