I just missed the bus this morning. As usual, I was waiting for the interminable light to cross 16th at Harvard NW when the bus went by. Then another, and another. Three buses, bumper to bumper, and all gone by the time the light changed.
So I waited. Not too long, six or seven minutes, but then three more came. From Harvard to Euclid there were 12 people on my bus, then 11 until we got to M. After I got off at H, I think there might have been one person left. No one got on while I was riding. There was another bus right in front of us that picked up all the passengers. And I got on the bus at about 7:20AM, not peak rush hour, but plenty of people are on their way to work at that time.
It's frustrating that, had the buses been spaced out just a little bit, I would have gotten one of the first bunch that went through. And WMATA would have saved some cash. Eleven fares probably don't even cover costs on the bus.
Sounds as though the bus
Sounds as though the bus company needs to run some optimization of utilization. Too many buses at that time of day (on top of being bunched together). A factor which may be difficult to manage is transit time from the depot to the starting points. Perhaps the 16th Street Bus needs to pick up a lot of people at the other terminus? Public transportation is a tricky thing to get right.
The majority of the morning
The majority of the morning riders are heading in my direction.
It's funny, because Metro put out a survey not long ago, and one of the things they asked about was bunching, and whether people thought that was a problem.
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