By Carolina Chaimovich
When Mercia Arnold moved to Washington, she wanted to buy a house in a neighborhood where there were trees, and where she could see the stars when she looked up to the sky.
Arnold found her ideal neighborhood in northeast Washington. It was 1992 and she had just started graduate school at Georgetown Law. To get to her classes and back to her house in Fort Totten, Arnold would rely on the bus system, regardless of undependable bus schedules or lack of bus shelters.
She doesn’t anymore.
“After 20 years of frustration I just stopped. At 55-years-old I am not inclined to feel that level of abuse,” Arnold said.
Arnold is one of approximately 25,000 Fort Totten residents who face a lack of sheltered bus stations on the north side of South Dakota Avenue NE. In Washington, approximately 113,000 people commute to work using their own vehicle according to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Other 125,413 residents rely on public transportation.
The Fort Totten metro station and the Brookland metro station are located approximately two miles away from each other. The last sheltered bus station on South Dakota Avenue before the Fort Totten metro station is in front of a McDonald’s, which is 0.6-miles away.
The bus stations along South Dakota avenue consist of metal poles with the bus schedules attached to them. Except for the one in front of the McDonald’s, the bus stations don’t have a seating area, or cover for the rain.
Ky Fonville, a local resident who uses public transportation to get to work, said that the bus stations make it especially hard for “older people and those with disabilities,” as she stood in the wind with her hood on, waiting for her bus which was running 13 minutes behind schedule.
“I am young and I am able to stand. But it would be nice if there was at least a bench around as we wait,” Fonville said.
In Fort Totten, 38 percent of the population is in between the ages of 35 and 64, and 19 percent are older than 65. The lack of shelter and seating area would not be as big of an issue if the buses ran on schedule, local residents say. The dissatisfaction of Fort Totten residents comes from the bus schedule attached to the metal pole being unreliable.
In addition to extreme weather, high crime rates also impact residents’ willingness to wait for the buses to come. Lieutenant Ashley Rosenthal suggests that residents commute in groups, since the majority of crimes in the area occur near public transit stops.
The majority of residents in the Fort Totten area have lived in their houses for more than 25 years. Some have been there for 50 years. Mercia Arnold believes that public policy should especially benefit those who have seen the district at its worse.
“They should be the people who are dealt the best cards when there is a policy change,” Arnold said.
However, there has not yet been any policy change regarding the bus shelters or the bus schedules in this section of town. There are no plans of constructing another bus shelter or increasing the number of buses running.
With no expectations for change, and the high number of cars on the streets due to commuters from Maryland and Virginia in addition to Uber and Lyft drivers, residents are more likely to follow on the path of using their own car.
William Craig III is a Maryland resident who works in the area and drives his own car to go to work.
“If I drive it takes me 18 minutes, if I take the bus it takes me more than an hour. Would I use public transportation if there was an express bus? Absolutely, but I know there aren’t gonna be any changes,” Craig III said.
DC Metro and Bus is an app that can be downloaded on iOS and Android phones and sends live updates regarding rail and bus predictions and DC Metro map directly from WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority).
The updates from the app are mostly accurate, however, it does not seem like a viable alternative to the bus shelters. Arnold said that telling the average person in the neighborhood that there is an app which can inform you when the next bus is coming is unrealistic.
Arnold refuses to waste time waiting for a bus and driving her own car will continue to be the best transportation method for her.
“Wasting time is very irritating. Not a minor irritation. If you are of a social strap where you cannot afford anything but the bus system, then God bless you.”
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