Despite complaints from neighbors, the Metrobus N8 route extension through Glover-Tunlaw will continue its six-month trial period, providing trips to many AU students and other riders, a Metro spokesman said.
Metro extended the N8 route in late December. In May AU halted its shuttle service to the area where a number of upperclassmen, graduate students, law students and young professionals reside.
Metro makes an effort to be sensitive to the residents' noise and traffic concerns, but it must serve its riders as well, said David Erion, a Metrobus operations specialist.
"Our mission is to provide transportation to people, and sometimes you can't avoid the residential streets ... to get people where they need to go. In each case you have to balance the interests [of riders and residents]," Erion said.
One Cathedral Avenue resident complained that the buses made too much noise and that the streets are not large enough to handle the traffic at a meeting of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3B on Feb. 10, Erion said. The resident, Pat Callahan, could not be reached by press time.
Some students who live in the area said the noise doesn't bother them.
"The D2 passes by my house and the N8 turns on the corner my house is on. Yeah, I hear it but I don't care," said Amanda Iger, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. "The D2 is just as noisy and goes in circles through Glover Park and no one seems to care."
The route extends south on New Mexico Avenue, loops around the Glover-Tunlaw area and reconnects with New Mexico.
Erion said Metro created the N8 route extension in response to requests from AU students and faculty after the University halted its shuttle service to the location where. At the time, AU's Transportation Services said members of the University community no longer lived there, The Eagle reported.
"There are a lot of AU students out here though, and I think we were all more than a bit annoyed when AU cancelled the shuttle," said Marc Malon, a senior in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Communication.
The neighborhood commission did not recommend the cancellation of N8's trial route, "despite Callahan's complaints," said ANC Chair Melissa Lane.
"I've gotten many, many e-mails supporting the route," Lane wrote in an e-mail. "I have gotten messages from everyone from high school kids to retirees as well as from those associated with the University either as students [or] employees, to citizens who rely on public transportation."
Lane also described the benefit of the route extension as "greater than anticipated" for her constituents, particularly those in Glover Park.
Erion said that Callahan's complaint is the only one he's heard, and that he has also received e-mails of support on the issue, not only from AU students, but from many different riders.
"That's good because it's serving a broader market than just the students," he said. "It's very encouraging."
Erion said it's too early to collect data on the popularity of the route, but Metro will begin gathering ridership information in April or May. It will also study the route's impact on the area and present its findings to the neighborhood commission.
After getting the commission's input, Metro will present the data to the city's Department of Transportation, which is subsidizing the cost of the trial. The department will decide whether Metro will make the route extension permanent.
