A local program providing free rides in areas with limited transit access has expanded into South Arlington.
The “microtransit” program recently announced it will now serve residents in and around Green Valley, Pentagon City, Crystal City and Douglas Park.
A proposal to prioritize buses on portions of two major Falls Church roadways prompted plenty of questions from City Council members at a recent meeting.
The concept delivered to city leaders was “Business Access and Transit Lanes,” or BAT. It allows drivers to use bus-priority lanes only for making right turns or accessing businesses along the route.
Falls Church officials are pressing for a fast-tracked effort to create a bus rapid transit (BRT) route running through the city’s core.
At the same time, City Council members Justine Underhill and David Snyder are seeking attention to detail and careful branding for the BRT line planned to run down Route 7 from Tysons to Alexandria.
Competition among local jurisdictions could be fierce during the next round of I-395/95 “Commuter Choice” transportation funding.
Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) staff are bracing for “significant demand” from localities across Northern Virginia, said Jason Adle, an NVTC program analyst.
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.
A new transit program serving parts of Arlington with limited bus access has largely been connecting riders to Ballston and East Falls Church, data shows.
Arlington’s “microtransit” pilot initiative has provided about 1,500 on-demand rides since it launched in April, Katie O’Brien, spokesperson for Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services, told ARLnow. About 50% of these were near the Metro stations in either Ballston (27%) or East Falls Church (23%).
Arlington leaders are laying the groundwork for a 2027 referendum asking voters to increase the local sales tax from 6% to 7%.
“Arlington is very seriously considering it,” County Board member Maureen Coffey said at the July 2 meeting of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) board of directors.
Arlingtonians who have long dreamed of soaring between locations by way of an aerial gondola system appear to have a new champion.
A firefighter and lifelong Arlington resident, Danny Wang, has entered the fight for gondola-style transit with a 40-page report sketching out a highly ambitious proposal.
Inconsistent policies on bus fares and enforcement are creating confusion among riders and challenges for transit in Northern Virginia, Metro’s top official says.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority CEO Randy Clarke critiqued the D.C. area’s patchwork of rules for where riders must pay to ride the bus, along with the limits placed on the Metro system’s ability to enforce its payment requirement.
Arlington’s new “microtransit” pilot program is launching next week, providing on-demand rides in portions of the county with limited transit options.
The program launches next Monday, April 13. It will be available in two service zones: one in Westover Village and the other in a large swath of northwestern Arlington, including all or some of the neighborhoods of Rock Spring, Yorktown, East Falls Church, Williamsburg, Leeway Overlee, Hall’s Hill and Old Dominion.
County officials now have real-world data on how Arlington Transit’s electric buses operate in winter’s chill.
Frigid temperatures in late January created unique challenges for the county’s fleet, draining batteries more quickly than normal and sometimes requiring a midday recharge, said Ryan Jones, a transportation planner who briefed the county’s Transit Advisory Committee on March 10.
Arlington Transit (ART) bus service is riding a post-Covid bump up in customer satisfaction.
A survey of 2,000 riders conducted on buses late last year found a 92% overall satisfaction rate, according to data presented March 10 to the county’s Transit Advisory Committee.
