Although top University administrators have examined adding bus stops at the National Mall and Capitol Hill to the Law Center route of the Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle, they cautioned it would not be feasible to implement in the near future.
A proposal to extend the route was submitted in November via Georgetown IdeaScale by Anebi Adoga (COL ’16), who introduced it in response to concerns of student interns on Capitol Hill. At print time, the proposal had 521 supporters on IdeaScale and 461 attendees at the associated Facebook event.
“The main reason we’re doing this [proposal] is that the Law Center shuttle already goes [by Capitol Hill and the National Mall] and it’s free,” Adoga said. “It’s also a fifteen-minute trip. With the Circulator and the G6, there are a lot of stops in between.” In the proposal, Adoga also suggested expanding the shuttle service to weekends.When asked about the proposal, however, Vice President of Facilities Management Robin Morey explained that the process of adding two more stops would require considering other factors.
“We must consider the increase to overall trip times and impacts on the current service and the desired mission of the Law Center route,” Morey wrote in an email to the Voice. “Additionally, we would be required to coordinate with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the District Department of Transportation and other federal agencies to gain approval to have a bus stop on the Hill or the Mall.”
Morey also expressed a need to analyze the additional costs. He noted, for perspective, that in the spring of 2013, the Office of Transportation Management added a weekend late night shuttle between campus and Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan, requiring $35,000 from its existing budget.
According to Associate Vice President for Federal Relations Scott Fleming, in response to the proposal, a survey will be circulated by the Georgetown University Student Association to gather data on student intern needs. The data will be used to get a sense of how demand would vary during the day and whether there were clusters of internship schedules.
Adoga said he was optimistic about the prospect of his proposal going into effect soon and envisions a new stop “in front of the House” by the fall of 2014.
Fleming was less confident, however, the proposal would be implemented quickly. “I think it is fair to say that the process of evaluating options that might provide easier access to Capitol Hill for students interning there is just getting underway,” he said.
