An Arlington leader is among several local officials opposing a proposal to merge bus systems in Northern Virginia in a quest for greater efficiency.
Though the possibility of merging transit systems came up during DMV Moves meetings late last year, leaders including County Board member Matt de Ferranti expressed skepticism after the concept re-appeared during a meeting last week.
“I do not think consolidation makes sense,” de Ferranti told ARLnow following a meeting of the DMV Moves task force, a transportation initiative jointly sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
De Ferranti serves as the Arlington representative on that body. He also is a member of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, which he chaired in 2024.
At the March meeting, Sen. Scott Surovell (D-34) sought to re-open previous conversations on consolidating local bus systems.
“I’m watching the presentation and not feeling like I was very listened to at the last meeting,” he said.
Surovell, the Virginia Senate’s majority leader, went on: “We talked a lot about trying to consolidate bus systems and trying to find efficiencies. I haven’t seen a single mention of that. One of the most obvious ways to find efficiencies is to consolidate bus systems.”
In addition to de Ferranti, opponents to the idea included Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Jeff McKay.
“I have a massive transit operation,” McKay said of Fairfax Connector operations. “People who run big bus systems need the autonomy. The bureaucracy pieces [of a consolidated system] get very complicated.”
In addition to Arlington Transit (ART) and Fairfax Connector, there are several other local bus systems run by contractors for Northern Virginia jurisdictions. They include DASH in Alexandria and CUE in the City of Fairfax.
Those bus lines typically were created to give localities more autonomy over routing within their jurisdictions, and to reduce costs compared to Metrobus service. Each has evolved distinctly, McKay said.
“Every jurisdiction has a very different sized bus operation,” he said.
Clark Mercer, COG’s executive director, said that while operators of local bus systems would be asked to work together and find efficiencies, his organization would not have agreed to sponsor the DMV Moves effort if one result was to have WMATA take over local systems and fold them into Metrobus operations.
“That is not a goal,” Mercer said. “This has not been an end-around.”
McKay said that despite his own antipathy to the merger concept, “that does not mean we can’t do things with efficiencies” — as long as they “do not equal takeover.”
In comments to ARLnow, de Ferranti took largely the same view.
“I do believe strategic efficiencies should be thoughtfully considered over the coming years,” he said.
Ceding decision-making to a regional operating entity would be counterproductive, de Ferranti suggested.
“Arlington’s buses must be reliable — we are in a new facility that is a big step forward as we continue to improve service,” he said.
The discussion came as the DMV Moves body inches closer to final recommendations on ways to create a long-term plan for the region’s mass-transit operations, and suggesting ways to pay for it. The body’s next meeting is set for May 16.
