New Transportation to the Phonebooth

[hoyaLS05]

Per GUHOYAS release...

guhoyas.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/110606aaa.html

[SoCal Hoya85]

I think it has to do with coordinating the number of busses that would hold 2,000 busses all leaving the arena at one time. I'm going to reserve judgment until I see how it plays out, it might do some good in stemming the tide of people leaving the games early.

[washingtonhoya]

socalhoya85 said:

I think it has to do with coordinating the number of busses that would hold 2,000 busses all leaving the arena at one time. I'm going to reserve judgment until I see how it plays out, it might do some good in stemming the tide of people leaving the games early.

Aside from the fact that (apparently) in Southern California every student gets a bus to themself...

I think this is an important move and the AD should be commended for it. With all the concerns of how to get enough student seats for the highest demand in 20+ years I was wondering when someone would realize that transportation was going to need to be addressed as well. Granted, for weekend games there will still be a significant contingent of students who will take cabs directly to Verizon to get there around 8 for a noon tipoff--a move I know I pulled more than once last year--but the AD still has to deal with likely 1/3 of the campus wanting to board buses regardless of whether the game is on a weekend afternoon or weeknight. Metro is really the only viable solution, and subsidising the Metro cards is just gravy.

This should be especially beneficial post-game; last year the rush for buses to campus was a near riot toward the end of the season and resulted in (I'm guessing) a plethora of violations of bus-driving safety standards. Granted, it's not like any of the buses sideswiped a car at the Key Bridge and M St. intersection, but still, it wasn't pretty.

Kudos to Bernard Muir and his staff for making Verizon more accessible to the Sea of Gray. 2000+ student season ticket holders doesn't mean anything if a quarter of them get discouraged about the impossibility of getting to games and decide not to go.

[lichoya68]

good thought was wondering how 2700 students would fit on how many buses like fifty or so no way good move bernard and the athletic dept now lets BEAT HARTFORD ALL STUENTS UP AND OUTA BED SAT BE THERE now the journey begins dont miss the kick off studs dont miss the kickoff go hoyas

[RBHoya]

washingtonhoya said:

This should be especially beneficial post-game; last year the rush for buses to campus was a near riot toward the end of the season and resulted in (I'm guessing) a plethora of violations of bus-driving safety standards. Granted, it's not like any of the buses sideswiped a car at the Key Bridge and M St. intersection, but still, it wasn't pretty.

Kudos to Bernard Muir and his staff for making Verizon more accessible to the Sea of Gray. 2000+ student season ticket holders doesn't mean anything if a quarter of them get discouraged about the impossibility of getting to games and decide not to go.

I don't imagine that 2000-some odd students plus thousands of other fans packing a narrow Metro platform will be too much safer, and I suspect "the crunch" to get on the train, and the subsequent ridiculously-packed train ride full of drunken, excited college students will probably be a bit less safe than the bus ride. At least when you had a bus driver there was SOME constraint on how many people could pile in, even if some of the drivers weren't smart enough to cap the amount of riders at the bus's capacity. With the Metro, there's no such constraint. I have no idea how many folks a car is designed to hold, but I suspect we'll be faaarrrrrr over the limit post-game.

I have a number of other reservations about/qualms with this idea, not the least of which is billing it as "enhanced transportation services" and acting like they're doing students a favor, when this seems IMO to be a pretty clear case of something they slapped together because of lack of other options that will definitely be a step down for students from a functional school bus system.

And it makes one of my points in my next column seem outdated and dumb .

Other than that, I'll keep my mouth shut for now, and hopefully I'll be wrong and everything will go well.

[JimmyHoya]

Give us a season and the Maryland kids will finally get to say for once: "see, those Georgetown kids aren't too perfect either."

This has disaster written all over it.

Piling 7 drunk kids into a Honda Civic and telling them to drive across town has about as much positive potential as the mob the metro is going to see.

[SFHoya99]

The Metro is made to handle larger crowds than GU will draw at Verizon Center. I wouldn't worry about it. This will be no different than a Wizards game or rush hour, for that matter. Two thousand students will make exactly zero difference.

Trying to manage two thousand kids to and from Verizon rather than a shuttle to and fro Rosslyn or Dupont is a large difference to the University. This seems a sensible alternative and frankly, students are lucky they are paying for it.

[GUHoya07]

sfhoya99 said:

The Metro is made to handle larger crowds than GU will draw at Verizon Center. I wouldn't worry about it. This will be no different than a Wizards game or rush hour, for that matter. Two thousand students will make exactly zero difference.

Trying to manage two thousand kids to and from Verizon rather than a shuttle to and fro Rosslyn or Dupont is a large difference to the University. This seems a sensible alternative and frankly, students are lucky they are paying for it.

I agree, the concern about 2,000 students in the Metro is absolutely absurd in my opinion. This is MASS TRANSIT after all and it is designed to handle thousands of people. In fact it does that daily during rush hour and after sporting events at places such as RFK. I really don't see why handling Georgetown students should be such a problem. The metro handles much bigger crowds fairly well, so I dont see a reason for concern.

[washingtonhoya]

Granted, I'm probably expecting the general public to have enough common sense not to injure one another on a Saturday afternoon when they're 11 hours from the last train leaving the station. I'm thinking back to the WVU game at Verizon last year. Post-game the Metro stop was an absolute mass of people. Had I not given up and walked the four blocks to the Metro Center stop, it probably would have taken at least 20 minutes to get on a train, but it didn't look like the situation was going to be completely out of hand.

Could the school-bus system have worked with a few modifications? Of course. Off hand, increasing the number of buses significantly and staggering the arrival at Verizon of the return buses over, say, 45 minutes to an hour would decrease the rush to get buses. Personally, though, some of my favorite opposing-fan stories from last season took place in Metro stations. And besides, think of all the Puppy Steps (?) ads students can be subject to.

Can this system work better than the bus system? Yes. Could it be a complete failure and blow up in the AD's face? Also possible. However, I think the bus system in its present incarnation wouldn't have been adequate to deal with the increase in attendance, and that a number of enterprising students would have started to use Metro anyway. I'm sure MPD traffic control will also be relieved that the choke point of getting students on to buses will be shifted to Dupont/Rosslyn rather than F St.

Although I admit that I had overlooked one important point in my 18-year-old naivete: Apparently people drink at Georgetown basketball games? And that might have an effect on their post-game behavior? When did that start?

(This might also set some sort of record for most posed-to-self questions in one post.)

[jerseyhoya34]

Reaction to this should be interesting after it is implemented. I like the idea of going more mainstream with the transportation system. It may decrease students' chances of seeing warmups if they use it, but it may also alleviate the run and gun system once the MCI personnel start scanning tickets.

As it turns out, I would say a solid group of folks started using mass trans last year as of the Duke game to gain an advantage over the people riding the school buses. So, it might not be as big of an adjustment as it looks on paper.

[tal1286]

I think the main appeal to me is that you don't have to sprint to the busses and worry about missing them.

Now I can take my time getting to the metro because I don't have to worry about missing all the busses. There will always be another metro unless it's 2 AM. I wouldn't be that concerned about a massive crunch because I think most students will realize they don't need to run to the metro and push everyone to get on the metro. Plus it's mass transportation, after all.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

I've been taking the metro to sporting events and other things for a while in the DC area and i do think we could hit some problems. first of all while tons of people take the metro to sporting events they don't all get on at the same stop. 2. A lot of georgetown students go to the games drunk. That's not true of most people who go to games on the metro. Yes drunk people do ride the metro but not lets say 200 getting on at the same time. Problems will occur trust me. Drunk people can get arrested and lost on the metro this can't happen with the busses. I think in general it won't be a problem for the average student. There willbe great build up and people waiting that will frusterate student fans and normal metro users. Also Yes metro is a mass transit system but even during normal rush hour it is overcrowded and there often isn't enough room. I hope their talks with metro authorties means they'll be runnign extra trains during our games because if not it's going to be a mess.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

1. Dupont to Gallery Place is against rush hour traffic on the Red Line, and the trains generally have plenty of room (at least until you hit metro center) on the way into the arena.

2. Drunk people get lost on the metro all the time.

3. On the way to games, there won't necessarily be 200 drunk students on the platforms because the busses will be staggered in dropping people off, and the trains come about every 7-8 minutes during rush hour.

4. They run extra trains for Nationals games on the blue/orange lines, because there are 30,000+ people. Trust me, 2,000 students really isn't as big as you think it is.

5. Hopefully, the fact that transportation is staggered will encourage more students to take advantage of the Gallery Place area, which has developed considerably over the last several years: five guys, california tortilla, matchbox, fado, hooters, lucky strike, gordon biersch, RFD, and several other options give plenry of reasons not to jump right into the Metro rush. Take it easy, have some food and beverage, and you can still make it back to Rosslyn in time for the shuttles (or at worst, a walk over the key bridge).

[hoyaboy1]

If you switch lines at Metro Center you are a lazy slob.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

duxnews said:

I think students are much more inclined to get on a bus on campus and get dropped off at the door of the arena rather than take a shuttle bus to rosslyn, orange line to metro center, red line to gallery place and walk, as will be the case on weekend games.

The simple solution is take the bus to rosslyn and get off at Metro Center, at which point it's a 4-5 block walk (i.e. shorter than Henle to McDonough) to the arena. It's really not as involved as one might think.

If people are that worried about public transportation, maybe this is actually a necessary step in the education of Hoyas.

[GUHoya07]

If people are that worried about public transportation, maybe this is actually a necessary step in the education of Hoyas.

EXACTLY! I'm very surprised that some people consider using public transportation such a difficulty and view it as such a negative development.

[AustinHoya03]

There's an easy way to avoid the massive rush of students onto Metrorail cars that is being predicted, and I'll bet the folks in McDonough have already thought of it: run fewer shuttles for a longer period of time. This isn't going to be eight buses caravaning to Rosslyn, it's going to be a few back-and-forth shuttles. And if it doesn't work well, there are plenty of other ways to get to Verizon Center which I'm sure enterprising students will take advantage of. I don't think I ever took the school bus to Chinatown following my sophomore year because I didn't live near Village C and I didn't enjoy the mad rush for the bus coming out of MCI.

I doubt there will be chaos, but there will always be complaints about the way the University gets students to and from MCI for as long as we play home games there.

EDIT: Re-reading the article, McDonough clearly HAS thought of this. Shuttle buses will begin running two hours before tip time and will also run for two hours following the conclusion of the game. If you're worried about the rush, have a burger at Fuddruckers and then head back.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

drunk people do get lost on the metro everyday. and that's what i'm worried aobut our studnets getting drunk and lost and not making it to the game. I do think that there will be more drunk people in one place than normally seen by metro which can lead to complaints from other riders. I was more worried about them running extra trains on the weekend when trains can be anywhere frm 10-20 minutes apart. You're right the main rush hour is goign out of the city which is the way i'm used to goign but there's plenty of rush hour traffic going into the city at that time too. My point about 2,000 students is that comign home after the game it was already packed on the Gallery place platform and you're goign to have 2,000 students adding to that mix. people are want to leave right after the game and go home. especially after week night games. They'll need extra trains to clear up all those people waiting at gallery place otherwise there are goign to be a lot fo upset people waiting to get on a train.

[FLHoya]

duxnews said:

I think students are much more inclined to get on a bus on campus and get dropped off at the door of the arena rather than take a shuttle bus to rosslyn, orange line to metro center, red line to gallery place and walk, as will be the case on weekend games. The buses have worked fine in the past, and I don't know if so many more students this year would have made the system difficult to coordinate or too costly, but I don't think that students are going to be relieved to see that they're getting themselves to games rather than getting picked up and dropped off at the Jes Res.

My concerns aren't that this is going to be unsafe but that it will be uncomfortable and timely, and give fans a reason not to go to our 20,000-seat off-campus arena. SoCal made a good point about reserving judgment because we haven't seen the system yet, but at first glance, I'm skeptical. I'd think that having the athletic department handing out metro cards and saying "good luck," isn't the best way to get people to the games, but then again, maybe it's the only way now.

The last sentence is closest to my thoughts on the subject. I actually agree with most of what you say though.

I can tell you this from my personal experience the past two years. For the past two seasons I lived in Foggy Bottom. My typical path to a game was to walk to the Farragut North station to avoid switching from Orange/Blue to Red lines at Metro Center. Between the walk, wait, and ride, took me anywhere from 20-30 minutes depending on the time of day. It was something I didn't mind, but I absolutely had to plan for each time I went to a game...keeping in mind when I needed to arrive to get good seats.

Regarding the crowding at Metro stations after games...it's actually not as bad as people think. WMATA is used to dealing with this, and the Chinatown Metro station in particular is one of those along with Stadium/Armory. More trains are sent through, and Metro cops do a pretty good job of regulating the entry into cars. Normally, the ride home for me was super easy, as I switched over to Orange/Blue at Metro Center and rode half-empty cars home...now obviously that won't be the case this year for students (although I moved to Crystal City so I'm all about the Yellow Line).

I don't think the extra 2,000 people at the Chinatown station is that big of a deal. However, I think a bigger issue is that all this new plan has done is move the scene of the "mad rush" from school buses on F Street to shuttle buses in Dupont Circle/Rosslyn. What does 1,500 students at the GUTS stop in Rosslyn on a Saturday afternoon look like? Or the same number by the stop in Dupont on a weeknight when everyone wants to get home?


It's not a perfect solution by any means...I don't think there really is one. Probably too many student fans to accommodate the normal old bus plans...and that mad rush thing was getting to be B.S. and I haven't taken those things in three seasons. But the convenience factor of taking a bus directly from point A to point B is a HUGE LOSS, made up for only in some sense by getting that free Metro card.

So my advice to students--don't worry too much about being stampeded on the Chinatown platform...but DO plan ahead and take into account that it's gonna now take you longer to get to/from the Verizon Center.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

I think part of the issue is that you can only park like 4 or 5 busses next to Verizon at any one time, so in order to accomodate the 45-50 busses that would be necessary to transport students, it would take at least an hour or so after games just to get people back onto busses anyway.

That said, I'm not sure where on campus you could stage that many busses to get to games (maybe on the pre-Southwest Quad version of Lot 3, but nowhere since).