Ask any Hoya why they chose Georgetown, and a common answer will be its location; we live only a couple miles from the center of the political world. Even Georgetown’s administration recognizes the value of our campus’ location, with its website marketing to prospective students that Georgetown is the “best of both worlds – a warm and nurturing campus community in a vibrant world-class capital city”. But can this promise of access to D.C. really be upheld given our current transportation system?
Let’s be real folks, Georgetown is in a bubble. Nestled in our corner of Northwest D.C., most Hoyas rarely venture beyond the confines of the Georgetown neighborhood. It is not our fault; our weekdays are packed with work, and when the weekend arrives, Hoyas are confronted by a dilemma.
There are currently three ways to get downtown D.C., and all prove difficult, expensive, and/or inefficient.
Ridesharing via Uber or Lyft is the most common way, albeit the most expensive. A one-way Uber to the Dupont Metro station during peak hours costs as much as fifty-five dollars, raising concerns of accessibility. Not every Hoya can afford to take an expensive Uber back and forth to campus, a fact that further contributes to Georgetown’s socioeconomic divisions. An alternative option is using WMATA buses and the D.C. Circulator to connect to the Metro or reach one’s final destination. Unfortunately, these options are often slow and unreliable, and personal safety concerns arise particularly at night. Additionally, chronic underfunding from the D.C. government has forced the WMATA to significantly cut bus services to the Georgetown neighborhood in recent years; the D.C. Circulator is seemingly following suit. Although the Georgetown neighborhood has not been completely isolated from the bus route, the availability and frequency of buses is only declining. The last option is walking. For those who are fast walkers, it takes only half an hour to reach Dupont Circle. If your destination is farther, best of luck!
Here is the irony. We already have a free and reliable solution to these problems: GUTS buses.
GUTS buses currently serve as a fast, convenient, and safe form of transportation, linking Georgetown with stops in Rosslyn, Dupont Circle, the GULC, and other key locations in D.C. during the weekdays. Students, staff, and other Georgetown University affiliated members utilize this service from 5:00am to midnight during the workweek, when they are whizzed across D.C. in a matter of minutes.
So, why not expand this service to the weekend? Nearby universities such as American University and George Washington University run their shuttles to Metro stops on the weekends. If the GUTS bus services did so as well—even under a limited route, as proposed by The Hoya in 2019—most students would instantly take advantage of this expanded schedule. Students would save a significant amount of money and would not be stranded waiting for the Metrobus, stuck on an inefficient ride, or forced to walk back to campus instead. The environmental benefit of using public transportation instead of ridesharing platforms is also immense. Most importantly, however, an expansive GUTS bus schedule means that every Hoya, regardless of socioeconomic status, can get equitable access to all that D.C. has to offer.
Georgetown recognizes the need for better off-campus transportation, and I applaud the administration for its recent steps in accomplishing that goal. For instance, the new Hoya Transportation Pilot Program allocated one hundred dollars of SmarTrip credit for WMATA services to a select number of students, and the Downtown Campus route was extended to Saturdays. These are both steps in the right direction, but they are far from enough if we hope to burst the Georgetown Bubble.
