Check out a Sunday evening at the DC Convention Center, it’s a bus jam of Biblical proportions.
On my way to the soon-closing Warehouse Theatre, I counted six buses lined up on 9th Street, including these three blocking the intersection. Buses all full of convention-goers going somewhere else.
Now I am of two minds on these land ships. It’s nice that folks are taking mass transit, even if it is a tour bus, instead of clogging streets with cars, but I’m sad to see folks in buses at all, especially since they’re probably headed a few blocks to a hotel, or a short ride to a Arlington hotel.
Either way, public transport, the Metro or their feet, could get them back and drive a few extra bucks to the city and city businesses on the way. Visitors need not be shuttled in isolation from hotel to convention.
Which brings me to the Convention Center anchor hotel the city wants to build across the street at 8th and Massachusetts Avenue and connect to the center via an underground walkway. I have only two words for that tourist tunnel: HELL NO!
We need people walking the streets, patronizing DC shops and stores, driving a revival in retail around the convention center, not sequestered underground or in hermetically sealed buildings.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
