D1 Glover Park-Franklin Square weekday one-way rush hour service is very important for workers (as well as Hardy Middle School students) to get inbound to their destinations in the morning and outbound in the afternoon rush hour.
- On the D1 and D2 combined, buses currently operate on that route every 5 minutes in morning rush hour v. every 9 minutes on the combined D2/G2 route WMATA has proposed to substitute for the D1 and D2.
- The D1 provides major additions to the capacity of bus service on the Glover Park-Dupont Circle route in peak times, easing the pressure on the D2 services which are already crowded. Decreasing rush hour frequency as proposed rom the current 5 minutes on D1/D2 to proposed 10 minutes on combined D2/G2 route would be a serious reduction in capacity and quality of service.
- D1 also gives commuters one-trip access to destinations beyond Dupont Circle, including Farragut Square, McPherson Square, and Franklin Square. WMATA estimates that without the D1, over 230 riders/day (60% of D1 riders) would have to make a transfer to reach their destinations.
D2 Glover Park-Dupont Circle all-day every-day service is essential for residents in Glover Park, including students at Hardy as well as hundreds of students at Duke Ellington High School.
- The D2 buses make a short round-trip between Dupont Circle and Glover Park, though congestion can make on-time performance difficult.
- The proposed combined D2/G2 route would include a long extension to the route, running east from Dupont Circle along P Street to 4th Street NW and then north to Howard University. Many of those blocks have severe traffic congestion at most times of day, which would create even more problems for reliability and on-time performance of Metrobus service to Glover Park.
- Ongoing utility work on 4th Street NW through the next two years would further reduce reliability as well as the chance to use higher capacity buses WMATA wanted to assign to the D2/G2.