DDOT Plan to Speed Up 8th Street NE Buses Between Florida Ave to East Capitol Street
by Larry Janezich
Posted December 18, 2021
DDOT will implement a plan to speed bus traffic between Florida Avenue and East Capitol by 2023. 8th Street NE will join a half dozen existing bus corridors already in moveDC’s Bus Priority Network. The Bus Priority Network is made up of 70 miles of the busiest bus corridors across the city where improvements are needed to make transit faster and more reliable. DDOT says that by 2032, 75% of all commute trips will be by non-auto modes.
Last Tuesday night, ANC6A Transportation Committee, chaired by resident committee member Maura Dundon, heard a kickoff presentation on the 8th Street Bus Priority Project by DDOT Project Manager Yohannes Bennehoff who said DDOT wants to make sure everyone knows this is happening as well as seek input from the community.
The Bus Priority Program uses over 20 tools – or treatments – to boost bus operations, including pedestrian improvements to ensure bus stop accessibility, bus lanes to reduce congestion delay, and transit signal programing which will give buses priority and queue jumps. Another tool is rebalancing of bus stops so that buses make fewer stops along the route, which reduces delay associated with entering the bus stop and re-entering traffic.
Initial concept design will begin in the spring of 2022 and construction in FY 2023. 8th Street, SE, south of East Capitol will be brought into the project at some future but uncertain date.
For more information and to provide feedback, go here: https://ddot.dc.gov/page/bus-priority
For more information on Bus Priority Plan tools, go here: https://bit.ly/3sjgo3A
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 
Phase I is Florida Ave to East Capitol. Phase II is East Capitol to M St SE. DDOT says they do not have sufficient staff to work the Bus Priority Corridor on both the NE and SE portions at the same time and chose to start on the NE segment. If I heard correctly the second phase would begin in 2022.