Transit Diary: A week in the life of a DC high school student

Transit Diaries is a series in which residents of Greater Washington track how they get around the region for a week, shedding light on what’s working well and not so well with our transportation systems. Read past Transit Diaries.

Hello, my name is Beckett Neustad and I was an intern for Greater Greater Washington in the first half of 2024, and am a student at School Without Walls High School, located in Foggy Bottom. I live in the Eckington neighborhood of Washington, DC, and typically commute via bicycle. I obviously spend most of my weekdays at school, but when I am not at school, I enjoy learning history, playing guitar and reading books. I also often spend my time doing homework, which is unsurprisingly a little less fun.

Day 1: Monday, April 29

I pretty much bike to school whenever I can. I am lucky to have a fairly direct route to my school with enough bike lanes to at least give the illusion of safety. Other than driving to school, which takes 30 to 45 minutes, my next best option is taking the Metro which usually takes roughly half an hour. Today I had to go to the GGWash Navy Yard offices at 1:30 pm for my internship, so I strongly considered taking the Metro from Foggy Bottom (where my school is) to Navy Yard. Ultimately, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and bike there.

I can’t say that the trip was easy. Navigating Southwest DC by bike wasn’t fun. Parts of I and M Streets were particularly bad. There was a lot of road work and the streets that weren’t being worked on were poorly paved. It didn’t help that I hadn’t memorized a route before setting out. The route I took turned out to be fine, but having to navigate in my head made things more stressful. In the end riding there ended up being a lot easier than the way back. I didn’t anticipate how difficult getting around the Capitol would be, leading me to take a roundabout route that added about 10 minutes to my journey.

Total distance traveled: Biking, 9.9 miles

Highlights: Taking the bike lane on Raoul Wallenberg Place was very smooth and made that part of the commute very easy. I just wish the bike lane could continue on Maine Avenue so you could connect up with the trail at the Wharf. The trip to Navy Yard only took about 25 minutes, which was impressively fast considering the bad planning and bad infrastructure.

Hitch: As I mentioned before, the bike infrastructure in Southwest was not ideal and I found myself taking the sidewalks a lot.

Day 2: Tuesday, April 30

Today was GGWash’s Sweet Sixteen celebration and this made my commutes more interesting. I rode my normal route to school and back without any big hitches. For those who weren’t there, the Sweet Sixteen celebration was down at the Wharf. This necessitated my second trip through Southwest. Luckily, I learned from my previous mistakes and took a much better route around the Capitol, going around the eastern side instead of the western side. I also took an interesting route back from the Wharf, going northward on 12th Street, riding through the National Mall and taking the Metropolitan Branch Trail back.

Total distance traveled: Biking, 14.3 miles

Highlights: Taking the Mall back was very smooth. The sidewalks are wide so you don’t feel like you are at risk of hitting pedestrians. I just want to say that the MBT is absolutely amazing! It always has lots of activity and shows how projects that are geared toward walking and cycling can succeed.

Day 3: Wednesday, May 1

After my two days of heavy commuting by bike, I was ready for a break. I did my normal biking commute to and from school. This is a good time to talk about what my commute is like. I like to think I have picked the best route to my school and back, both time- and safety-wise. On the way there, I take R Street until I get to Rhode Island Avenue, which I take to Logan Circle. I then turn onto Vermont Avenue, take it to Thomas Circle, and then turn onto M Street. I take M Street for a while before turning onto 20th Street and finally turning onto G Street, where my school is. On the way back I start by taking the reverse of my route to school, but I deviate from it by turning onto L Street and taking the bike lane there until I turn left onto 13th Street. I take 13th Street up to Rhode Island Avenue, which I take until I turn onto Q Street. I take Q Street all the way to First Street NW and continue on First to R, which takes me home.

Total distance traveled: Biking, 6.4 miles

Highlights: My commute is very fast by bike, solidly beating my time when driving or taking the Metro, despite the poor infrastructure through many parts of the ride.

Hitches: Biking along Rhode Island Avenue can be very scary. There are no bike lanes on the way to school and I have to ride in the third lane, sometimes having to dodge past illegally parked cars. The bike lane on L Street can also be very scary at times. The places where the bike lane shifts to the right to accommodate a left turning lane freaks me out since I have to look back each time to make sure cars aren’t changing lanes.

Day 4: Thursday, May 2

Boy, did I have a busy day in terms of transit! I did my normal commute without any problems in the morning, but my afternoon commute was disastrous! For context, I have wanted to get a new bike for a few months. My current bike is a mountain bike, which is great for mountain biking, but not for city riding. My mountain bike has also had a lot of issues with the gear shifter, which is what plagued my ride back from school. When I was crossing K Street and Connecticut Avenue and tried to shift gears, my chain came loose and got stuck in my gear shifter. This caused me to lose all my momentum and I almost flew off my bike. Luckily I was able to stabilize myself and make it through the intersection with only a few bruises. But my bike was broken. I managed to get the chain back on the bike and got home, but now I need a new bike as soon as possible.

On an unrelated note, today was also my mother’s birthday. We had scheduled a birthday dinner in NoMa, which we planned to walk to. It is a very short walk, but it involves going around Dave Thomas Circle, which is an absolute nightmare. It is being renovated, in a hopefully successful effort to improve traffic flow. Recently there have been people directing traffic during certain hours of the day, which has made things a lot safer. However they weren’t there when we crossed, forcing us to dodge traffic and walk in-between cars stuck in traffic. Other than that the walk was smooth and we took the MBT back, which was, suffice it to say, a lot safer.

Total distance traveled: 9.5 miles. Walking, 3.1 miles. Biking, 6.4 miles

Highlights: Not many highlights today but I can say that the MBT is still amazing. The next time it is suggested that we widen a freeway or road, we should widen this instead. It could certainly use extra capacity!

Hitches: My bike breaking was an obvious hitch, but at least that wasn’t due to poor urban planning. I am sure a lot of people reading this will know this already, but Dave Thomas Circle is one of the scariest places to be a pedestrian. I am hoping that the work will make things feel safer, but I have my doubts. In the meantime, it is terrifying to have to dodge cars in the middle of crosswalks and decipher unclear walk signals.

Day 5: Friday, May 3

I checked my bike last night and determined it would not be safe to ride to school in the morning, meaning that I would either have to drive or take the Metro. Readers of GGWash may be disappointed to know that I opted for the former. While the actual Metro ride is very fast, it involves 15 minutes of walking on either end, greatly extending the journey. This makes driving the second-fastest option after biking. Driving does have another upside: it gives me hours toward getting my provisional driver’s license.

For those who don’t know, there are two steps to getting a driver’s license in DC. First, you get a learner’s permit by passing a multiple choice test; then you need 40 hours of driving and to pass a driving test to get a provisional license. Finally, to get your full license you have to get another 60 hours of driving in. I am currently almost done with my hours and am planning to take my driving test soon, so driving to school does have a silver lining. In addition, because my father has to be in the car with me I don’t have to park.

Total distance traveled: 7.9 miles. Walking, 1.5 miles. Driving, 6.4 miles

Highlight: I took a walk around the GW campus during my lunch break today and the campus is quite pedestrian friendly.

Hitches: Rhode Island Avenue isn’t just a disaster to commute on by bike, it is also a disaster to commute on via car. Drivers are very aggressive and often try to pass you using the parking lane, only to have to honk their way back into traffic after getting stuck behind a parked car. This isn’t so much a hitch as bad urban planning, but there are several places on Rhode Island Avenue where there are crosswalks with no stop signs or lights where cars are instructed to stop for pedestrians. While this may be a good idea in theory, in practice it means that cars can zip past pedestrians who have to run across the six-lane avenue when there is a lull in traffic.

Day 6: Saturday, May 4

My only transit excursion today was going to get a haircut in Takoma Park. The Metro ride took about 25 minutes including walking on both ends. The ride went without any hitches and I made it in time for my haircut. My mother and sister met me there, and afterwards, I drove them back home, getting some more hours behind the wheel.

Total distance traveled: 11.7 miles. Walking, 1.7 miles. Driving, 4.8 miles. Metro, 5.2 miles

Highlights & hitches: The Metro trip was very smooth and fast. The walk to and from the Metro added a little to the duration, but otherwise I was very satisfied with it. Takoma Park is fairly walkable, there are some questionable intersections and the roads feel unnecessarily wide, but it has a car-free area and the sidewalks are passable.

Day 7: Sunday, May 5

This is by far my least interesting day. I spent most of the day on homework and preparing for exams. My one excursion was to my sister’s chorus recital near the American University law school. I drove there and back with my parents.

In terms of my transit decision making there was really no question that driving was by far the easiest choice. The second best option would have been to take the Red Line to AU, but this would have entailed a long walk from the Tenleytown Metro to my sister’s choir recital. A bike trip would have been difficult anyway and was impossible with my entire family going.

Total distance traveled: Driving, 13 miles

Highlights & hitches: The bike infrastructure in Ward 3 is very underdeveloped, making any bike trip difficult. It sure would be nice to have bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue.

While this may not be a highlight or hitch I think it is interesting that when traveling to places in upper northwest from where I live driving is clearly the easiest and fastest choice. Part of this has to do with the lack of Metro stops across upper northwest. The Red Line can take you to the most prominent areas of upper Northwest but there’s no way to get to areas far away from the Red Line without taking a long walk. A line going roughly horizontally across Northwest could help end this problem, though this would be far off in the future owing to WMATA’s current funding woes. Another part of this is the ease of access with a car. It is not hard to find parking and Massachusetts Avenue takes you most of the way there.

Final tally: 30 trips

Reflections

This was an interesting and informative experience. I had never really thought about my daily commutes like this. I found writing this diary very helpful for giving myself a document I can look back at to consider how I make choices on how I get around. This week was not necessarily representative of a normal week in my life, what with my bike breaking and having a lot of commuting to Navy Yard in the first two days. I was a little horrified by the fact that I drove the last three days, but this provided a good wake-up call for me and it was affected by circumstances beyond my control.

Keeping this diary also made me concentrate more on the things I would like to see changed. While I often think of these things when I am commuting, it was helpful to write these hitches down and think about possible solutions. My hope is that others will have encountered these problems and brainstormed their own solutions. Writing this has also made me appreciate the many ways in which our region is unique. We benefit from a great Metro system, and for all its flaws, my bike commute wouldn’t be possible in many other American cities. In the end, this reiterated for me the fact that the Washington, DC, region is great but it can be greater.