DC Circulator service shuts down

The service shut down with the new year ("Round and round one last time: The final day of the D.C. Circulator," Washington Post).

I was a fan of the original, a comfortable more sporty red and silver Van Hool bus.  And the service from Downtown to Georgetown/Rosslyn and eventually around the National Mall ("New DC Circulator route serving National Mall reminds us that we are neglecting connections from west to east and fail to adequately connect Georgetown to the National Mall") made theoretical sense.

Later, because people wanted the sporty red and silver buses to serve their neighborhoods, various additional lines were added.

But ridership, in reality was abysmal.

-- "Lies, damn lies, and misleading data: bus service (DC Circulator)," (2023)
-- "Throwing up my hands and the "Anacostia" "Circulator"," (2010)

For years they hadn't been reporting data by bus line--there are six.  Obviously it's because most of the lines have minimal ridership.   This is from a blog entry, "Semi-reprint: Methodology for determining transit expansion" from 2014:

DC Circulator ridership per day
High and low service months (2013 data)

Route	Ridership Peak	Month	Ridership Low	Month
Georgetown-Union Station	6,600	June	5,500	February
Woodley Park-McPherson	5,060	February	4,000	November
Union Station-Navy Yard	1,700	July	900	November
Rosslyn-Dupont Circle	2,750	July	2,550	October
Potomac Ave.-Skyland	1,650	September	1,150	November

I had no idea that the ridership of these various bus lines was so pathetic. I knew they were bad mostly, but I had no idea how low the ridership is--other than the fact that I look at every Circulator bus that I pass and judge the amount of ridership on that particular bus, and most cases, except Downtown-Georgetown and sometimes on 14th Street, the number of riders appears to be minimal.

Flickr photo by Elvert Barnes.

This year the city decided to cancel the Circulator overall out of budget concerns.  I don't remember the exact number, but it cost a fair amount, needed many millions for new equipment and had a maximum farebox revenue of about $2 million.

The benefit-cost relationship was way out of wack.

Of course, most transit advocates wanted to keep the service ("The Circulator’s death doesn’t have to leave riders, workers stranded. Transfer services to WMATA," GGW).  By comparison, high ridership Metrobus lines in DC, at least before the pandemic, was 12,000 to 30,000 riders per day.