C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022
commuter
long corridor will be removed.
Jerry Baxter, of consulting firm
Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson,
which is leading the project de-
sign for DDOT, said the transit
way will reduce potential con-
flicts between cars and other trav-
elers by separating bus and vehic-
ular traffic, while cycle tracks will
keep bicycles and scooters sepa-
rated from cars and sidewalks.
The existing configuration with
service lanes, he said, “is outdated
and inefficient, which leads to
congestion along the corridor.”
“Safety improvements are be-
ing incorporated into the project,
including median refuges and
shorter pedestrian crossings, all-
day left turn restrictions and re-
ductions in pedestrian vehicle
conflicts,” Baxter said.
The project has the backing of
the DowntownDC Business Im-
provement District. Gerren Price,
acting president of the BID, called
it “a once-in-a-generation oppor-
tunity” to improve bus service and
“elevate this iconic city corridor as
a place that draws people in and
keeps them coming back.”
He said the group supports pri-
oritizing transit and is working
with DDOT as it completes the
design to offer comments on curb-
side needs, streetscape design
and user experience. The service
lanes along the corridor, which
will be removed, are heavily used
by delivery trucks.
Project officials say the transit
way will bring time savings for
commuters on buses and in other
vehicles.project and what it means for the
corridor,” Everett Lott, the city’s
transportation chief, said in a
statement. “It improves safety
and access for pedestrians, bicy-
clists, and drivers, and also makes
our bus network more efficient.”
Construction is slated to begin
in spring 2023, Lott said. The
project is then expected to take
three years to complete.
It’s one of several plans or pro-
posals across the city to create
separate lanes for buses.
Federal and local officials are
weighing options to add bus lanes
on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The
city is also exploring prioritizing
bus travel along Pennsylvania Av-
enue SE and Minnesota Ave SE,
and is close to completing dedi-
cated bus lanes on 16th Street NW,
one of the busiest bus corridors in
the region. In recent years, D.C.
also has launched and enhanced
bus lanes on H and I streets NW.
Along K Street, the transit way
will traverse a high-density com-
mercial district in downtown,
abutting three parks: Farragut
Square, McPherson Square and
Franklin Square. The corridor
also has high demand for truck
deliveries and space for passen-
gers to enter and exit vehicles.
The proposed design includes
loading, and pickup and drop-off
zones on one side of the street in
sections where the road width
allows. Some blocks — such as
between 13th and 14th streets NW
— have more limited space and
won’t include loading zones. Most
metered parking along the mile-a coalition of businesses, nonprof-
it organizations and transporta-
tion advocates pushing for ex-
panded and modernized bus serv-
ice in the Washington region.
The K Street project, she said,
will boost service on routes with
the highest demand. Although the
pandemic wreaked havoc on tran-
sit and changed commuting pat-
terns, bus ridership has fared sig-
nificantly better than rail, trans-
porting “essential” workers dur-
ing a rise in telework. Metrorail is
also struggling through a train
shortage that has hurt ridership
amid a federal safety investiga-
tion.
Under the plan, protected bus
lanes — one in each direction —
will be built in the center of K
Street, providing dedicated space
for more than a dozen bus routes
to breeze through downtown
while separated from other vehi-
cle traffic. The corridor carries
about 20,000 transit users daily,
according to the District Depart-
ment of Transportation.
One-way cycle tracks will run
alongside the transit way, as will
two general travel lanes in each
direction for drivers. Improve-
ments to crosswalks and new
landscaping will be added.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is
requesting the remaining $57
m illion needed for the project in
her fiscal 2023 budget. The rest of
the funding has been secured in
previous years.
“We are very excited about this
TRANSIT FROM C1
D.C. project to add bus, bike
lanes for swath of K Street
Weekday ridership across the
Metrobus system two weeks ago
averaged 268,000 users, up about
50 percent from last year, accord-
ing to Metro — higher than Metro-
rail’s 222,000 average daily trips.
Metrobus ridership is still down
about 30 percent compared to
pre-pandemic levels.
Planners say the new bike in-
frastructure in the corridor will
also provide for safer bike travel
while connecting to other major
bike routes, including the cycle
track on 15th Street NW. The proj-
ect’s two one-way cycle tracks will
be protected by a two-foot con-
crete barrier.
In addition to funding the K
Street improvements, Bowser’s
budget proposal this year in-
cludes $102 million to be spent
over six years for bus programs,
including improving accessibility
to bus stops, new bus lanes and
the addition of cameras to enforce
bus lane rules.Bus stop platforms will be 11 feet
wide and include shelters and
screens that show bus arrival
times. The platforms will be ele-
vated 10 inches from the roadway
surface to allow for boarding that
is nearly level with the bus, offi-
cials said.
The improvements will speed
up bus transit for thousands of
riders on more than a dozen
Metrobus and Circulator routes.
The plan is eventually to have at
least 18 bus routes on the transit
way, project officials say, with as
many as 60 buses per hour in each
direction during peak periods.
Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly
said the project will build on prog-
ress made in recent years with
dedicated bus lanes on H and I
streets downtown. She said the
transit agency is “prepared to
make complementary adjust-
ments to Metrobus services to
fully realize the benefits” of the
transit way.Eastbound traffic during the
morning rush, for example, will
get across the corridor in less than
six minutes, a savings of about a
minute and 20 seconds in travel
time, according to DDOT. West-
bound traffic will move through
about a minute more quickly. The
estimates are based on a traffic
analysis from 2019, before the
pandemic changed traffic vol-
umes, but transportation officials
said pre-pandemic levels are re-
turning.
Bus riders will see bigger im-
provements, with savings of up to
six minutes in the evening, cut-
ting time spent in the corridor by
about 40 percent. Before the pan-
demic, buses often crawled be-
hind traffic while navigating to
stops along the route.
DDOT said it does not expect
changes to the project design be-
cause of the pandemic.
The transit way will include
four bus stops in each direction.DISTRICT DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION)
The District’s planned $123 million transformation of large portions of K Street would remove existing
service roads to add bus and bike lanes. Construction is slated to begin in 2023.BY IAN DUNCANTwo years ago, air travel all but
came to a standstill as governors
imposed strict rules designed to
limit the spread of the coronavi-
rus. In the months that followed,
airlines and airports survived
with tens of billions of dollars in
aid from the federal government.
In the months since, the recov-
ery in air travel has been bumpy,
with people’s desires to see distant
family or to get away from home
clashing with new waves of the
virus. But heading into this sum-
mer’s vacation season, travel
seems to be on a steady upswing.
The Washington Post spoke
with Chryssa Westerlund, execu-
tive vice president and chief rev-
enue officer of the Metropolitan
Washington Airports Authority —
which operates Dulles Interna-
tional and Reagan National air-
ports — about navigating the pan-
demic and expectations for travel
the rest of the year.
Q: It felt like in March 2020, the
system changed and flights
stopped and passengers stopped
coming. Was that your experi-
ence, that this change was incred-
ibly swift and dramatic?
A: W e had been monitoring the
situation for a couple of months
leading up to March. We had seen
some of the flights being suspend-
ed to China. But yes, in terms of
March, I think we saw a pretty
dramatic drop-off. There was a
period of repatriation where we
saw a surge of folks that had not
intended to travel, so Dulles did
see a lot of that traffic for a couple
of weeks immediately after the
impact. But overall, yes, it was an
incredibly significant drop, prob-
ably faster than we have seen,
certainly in my career.
Q: What were some of the chal-
lenges you were faced with im-
mediately?
A: I think our immediate con-
cern was the
same as the rest
of the country:
How do we all
take care of our
customers, our
passengers and
our employ-
ees? Our focus
really turned
immediately to
health and safety, and so, very
quickly, we increased our cleaning
procedures. We moved our em-
ployees into close-in parking so
they wouldn’t be on a bus. We
dropped all of our close-in park-
ing rates so our passengers could
pay economy prices for walkable
spaces and didn’t have to take the
bus. And then really, just commu-
nicating and, of course, putting
the mask mandate in as quickly as
we could.
Q: When did you start to feel
like the most acute phase of the
crisis had passed for your air-
ports? And then, what was the
process of trying to adjust to some
kind of new normal?A: Last summer, it became ap-
parent that people were getting
more comfortable with flying
again, that we were seeing the
leisure traveler really come back
in force last summer, and that’s
only continued to increase. That
really gave us a line of sight that, at
least mentally, people were in a
place where they were more com-
fortable with the process of travel-
ing on an airplane. Then really, it
became more about what was
open within the destinations that
they wanted to go to and how safe
they felt when they arrived.
Q: What’s the situation with
international travel? Is that still
down much more than domestic?
A: It continues to be down more
than domestic. We did see a nice
surge when it was first reopened,
and it was really a fantastic experi-
ence to see some of these families
that have been separated for al-
most two years have an opportu-
nity to see each other. In some
cases we saw grandparents who
had never met their grandchild.
So that was a really great experi-
ence to see that opened back up.
There has been, still, a large
number of restrictions in place
with travel that added to the cost,
that added to the concern when it
came to international travel.
Those are slowly coming away,
and I think we are seeing an up-
tick in international travel. Our
airlines are really placing their
bets on international travel com-
ing back this summer very strong.
We have the same amount, if not
more, international capacity
scheduled for this summer at
Dulles International as we had inthe pre-pandemic. So as of right
now, they’re still optimistic. You
know, it’s a very uncertain time
frame with the fuel costs, with the
international crisis being driven
by Ukraine.
Q: For domestic flights, are you
expecting to see this summer be
comparable to 2019 or are you
expecting it might still be some-
what lower? Or might there be
some pent-up demand?
A: Coming into this year and
looking at where we’re at now, we
are expecting a strong summer
again. Leisure travel is very
strong, if not, in some cases, stron-
ger than it was before 2019. The
fact that companies have not
pulled all of their employees back
into the offices has allowed people
to work from other destinations.
That has increased what we call
the “bleisure” travel, a combina-
tion of business and leisure,
where they’re functioning as em-
ployees from destinations that
might be farther away. True busi-
ness travel isn’t going to come
back, though, I think, until we see
the federal government and agen-
cies move back into their offices.
There’s really no one for these
contractors to meet with when
everybody’s working from home.
So I think that’s going to be the
tipping point as to when we see
travel look a lot like the pre-pan-
demic levels.
Q: For people who haven’t trav-
eled through an airport in the last
couple of years, how is their ex-
perience going to be different at
National or Dulles?
A: Certainly at Reagan Nation-
al, with the completion of the newsecurity checkpoints, the addition
of the new concourse, I think folks
are going to be really happy with
their experience. But it’s a differ-
ent flow of passengers, so they
need to give themselves a little bit
more time because it’s not exactly
what they experienced on a pre-
pandemic basis. I love to highlight
the fact that we have been moni-
toring the customer feedback on
those changes, and we’re seeing a
96 percent positive reaction to the
new checkpoint. So in that way, I
would say everything that’s hap-
pening at Reagan National,
they’re going to be very happy and
pleasantly surprised with the pos-
itive impact on the journey. The
other aspect of it was, we almost
doubled the amount of post-
-security concession opportuni-
ties at Reagan National by moving
those checkpoints.
But of course, most important-
ly, they need to wear their masks.
The mask mandate is still in place.
And also think very strongly about
making a parking reservation.
With so much leisure travel, we
are seeing our parking garages
already filling on weekends so far
in 2022, and that is likely to con-
tinue to be a trend. So if folks want
to have the peace of mind and the
guarantee that they have a space,
they should definitely make a res-
ervation.
Q: On the concession side, how
healthy is that? Have you seen
people go out of business? Have
you seen new concessions come
in?
A: T he pandemic has been a
really scary time for our conces-
sionaires. At one point, probably85 percent of them had closed
their doors and were sitting on the
sidelines trying to figure out what
to do and how to keep their busi-
nesses viable. The airports au-
thority was very thankful for the
fact that the federal government
stepped in and provided a signifi-
cant amount of financial support
to the airports, because that al-
lowed us to turn around and be
very generous with our partners.
So we’re happy to say that virtual-
ly all of our concessions partners
are still viable businesses. Close to
95 percent, if not more, are now
open again and operating.
Q: D o you feel like there’s going
to come a point by the fall where
you’ll be able to look back and say,
“We’re really back in the swing of
things here”?
A: W e are seeing our customer
satisfaction numbers are doing
well. And in some ways, you know,
the lower passenger count helped
that, because it’s not as crowded.
They’re finding a nice seat, and
they’re able to get through their
concession lines very quickly. So
in that sense, I think our custom-
ers are actually having a better
experience and really appreciat-
ing everything that’s happening
in the airports.
I like to be optimistic and think,
by the end of this year, we will be
approaching pre-pandemic levels
of travel in certain months. Our
forecast for the whole year is real-
ly to be back to about 80 percent of
pre-pandemic levels, but that
starts a little slower in the start of
the year and kind of works its way
all the way back to the top at the
end of the year.Summer leisure numbers at Dulles, National airports might rival 2019
But business travel
hasn’t hit pre-pandemic
levels, official saysWesterlund(202) 919-9209 (301) 778-4222 (703) 650-9337