Bus ridership on Arlington Transit (ART) was up about 1.1% in the fiscal year ending in June, despite being held back by a seven-week government shutdown.
The local bus system had a ridership total of 2,669,853 passengers for the 12 months ending June 30, according to figures from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. That’s up from the 2,640,152 riders a year before.
Arlington officials have revamped ART routes and times in recent years, seeking to maximize efficiency while increasing ridership. The efforts took a hit when Congress couldn’t agree to fund government operations, leading to a shutdown lasting from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12.
As a result, the county’s October 2025 ridership was down 2.2% from a year before, during what is “typically the highest ridership month we have,” said Paul Mounier, a transit planner for the county government who spoke at the November meeting of the Transit Advisory Committee.
Of the five local bus services across Northern Virginia, ART’s ridership change was in the middle of the pack. Both Alexandria’s DASH and Loudoun County Transit posted major gains, while Fairfax Connector and the City of Fairfax’s CUE experienced declines.
All told, the five systems carried more than 21.15 million passengers during the year, up a cumulative 6.57% from a year before.
“This is a great sign, showing the health of our system,” said Sophie Spiliotopoulos, manager of the data-visualization program for the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC).
Spiliotopoulos detailed fiscal year 2026 results at NVTC’s Sept. 3 meeting.
When adding Metro and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) service to the local bus systems, Northern Virginia in fiscal year 2026 was almost, but not quite, back to pre-pandemic mass-transit use that totaled about 130 million riders in fiscal year 2019.
“The bottom line is, transit ridership continues to grow,” said Sarah Bagley, the vice mayor of Alexandria and NVTC’s board chair. “It’s very exciting.”
Metrorail remains the dominant mass transit provider across Northern Virginia, with about 1.5 million riders weekly, according to state data. Metrobus and the local bus systems posted a combined average of about 1.08 million riders weekly, with VRE adding about 41,600.
Among individual systems, with figures from DRPT’s online database:
- Arlington Transit: Ridership of 2,669,853 was up 1.1%
- CUE: Ridership of 906,072 was down 4.5%
- DASH: Ridership of 6,960,310 was up 20.9%
- Fairfax Connector: Ridership of 9,574,869 was down 1.1%
- Loudoun County Transit: Ridership of 1,047,483 was up 27.8%
- Combined local bus service: Ridership of 21,158,587 was up 6.6%
- Metrobus (Northern Virginia): Ridership of 14,228,712 was down 4.8%
- Metrorail (Northern Virginia): Ridership of 78,924,798 was up 7.8%
- All Metro service, including MetroAccess (Northern Virginia): 93,281,422, up 5.7%
- Virginia Railway Express: Ridership of 2,164,921, up 8.9%
The systems have all rebounded from pandemic-era declines in their own ways, Spiliotopoulos said.
“We have different service patterns, modes and riders,” she said.
At the Sept. 3 meeting, both Bagley and Fairfax County Supervisor Dalia Palchik (Providence) said local transit agencies that improved during fiscal year 2026 should be asked to share their experiences with those that did not fare as well.
Despite ups and downs, “we have a very robust [regional] system,” Palchik said.
