The seven-week government shutdown derailed growth at Arlington Transit (ART), but county leaders anticipate a return to higher numbers.
October is “typically the highest ridership month we have,” said Paul Mounier, a transit planner for the county government, at the Nov. 18 meeting of the Transit Advisory Committee. But figures show a ridership decline of 2.2% year-over-year that month, dropping to just over 243,000 riders.
That compares to year-over-year ridership growth of 21.4% in July through September.
“Hopefully we’ll see those numbers going back up,” Mounier said at the meeting.
For the third quarter, county officials reported the following passenger data:
- July: Ridership stood at 252,391, up 23.6%
- August: Ridership was 262,910, up 25.9%
- September: Ridership was 242,645, up 14.9%
County transportation officials didn’t have an explanation for why the ridership growth eased in September, but they said they’d look into it. The government shutdown began Oct. 1.
Like all transit agencies regionally and nationally, passenger counts for ART declined significantly upon the arrival of Covid in 2020.
“We have not quite reached the level we did” pre-Covid, Mounier said. But some ART routes are now above pre-pandemic levels and the system as a whole is “really close,” he said.
About 2.62 million passengers rode the local service between July 2024 and June 2025. That marked an increase of 9% from the preceding year.
Despite the overall increase, ridership levels remained below the record 2.99 million passengers traveling during fiscal 2018, according to archived performance data.
November ridership figures, to be released later this month, also will be impacted by the government shutdown.
