An example of where you really need a Circulator bus...

A couple weeks ago in the Gazette, there was this letter to the editor, "More parking needed at Glenmont Metro" in favor of the construction of a second parking garage at Glenmont Station, which is the northernmost red line subway station on the eastern leg of the subway line.

From the article:

People questioning the need for a second Glenmont garage either do not take Metro from Glenmont regularly, or already have reserved parking.

The letter is in response to this November Gazette article, "Metro unveils design for Glenmont parking garage," which discusses plans to build an addition !! 1,200 space !! !! parking garage !! at the station.

The reality is that it's damn expensive and a waste of resources to build a parking garage, at $20,000/space of money from the WMATA budget which is seriously pressed, for a bunch of cars to sit for 9 hours or so, so people can get to and from the subway.

Of course, it depends on where the cars are coming from. Since it is the outwardmost station on the eastern leg, theoretically, a fair number of riders could be coming to the station from distant points where there isn't transit service, comparable to how far out residents drive to the Vienna Metro Station in Fairfax County, from points further west beyond Fairfax County.

In any case, a rider study could be done, determining where the riders come from, and how to get more people to the subway station via transit/walking/bicycling, rather than driving.

Of course it's too late because the parking garage is going to be built.

Maybe RideOn schedules for buses serving the Glenmont station can be tweaked/expanded during rush periods, to move more people to the station by transit, just as how the region is working to improve bus stops so that more people who use the paratransit service will instead use the cheaper option of regularly scheduled service (one inducement would be to offer MetroAccess eligible riders free transit on the regular system vs. highest maximum fare on the paratransit service).

Sadly, looking at this from a broader perspective did not happen.