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.
One Arlington leader wants localities to be more aggressive in seeking transportation and transit funding along the I-66 corridor.
County Board member Takis Karantonis lamented that nearly $40 million in available funding will be left on the table in the latest round of “I-66 Commuter Choice” grants.
The Falls Church City Council is preparing to vote on a region-wide proposal to increase annual spending for Metro by $460 million every year.
On Monday, Feb. 2, Council members are slated to discuss a request from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) to formally support the DMV Moves funding proposal to augment Metro service.
Arlington would be a very different place today if all the road plans of the county’s first General Land Use Plan (GLUP) — enacted in 1961 — had been constructed.
A massive arterial named Bluemont Drive would have cut east to southwest across the county. S. Four Mile Run Drive would have been much larger than its current configuration. A freeway in the Donaldson Run area would have connected to the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
The unexpected departure of a major pro-transit voice in the Virginia General Assembly has created a void that an Arlington legislator appears primed to fill.
Del. Adele McClure (D-2), who sits on the House Committee on Transportation, has provided a key voice in various recent discussions on transit. In the 2026 General Assembly session, she could step into the shoes left behind by former Del. Mark Sickles (D-17), who is leaving his elected post to become Virginia’s next Secretary of Finance.
The Arlington County Board is throwing its weight behind a region-wide proposal to provide more funding for Metro.
County Board members on Tuesday voted unanimously to encourage General Assembly action on the regional DMV Moves plan for sustained increases in transit funds.
Potential increases to towing fees and taxi rates are on the agenda as County Board members close out 2025.
Both matters will be considered at the Board meeting on Saturday, Dec. 13.
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.
An automated system that adjusts the timing of traffic signals when buses are running late is helping to improve transit reliability along Langston Blvd.
Since late summer, county transportation officials have been using “transit signal priority” along the 5-mile corridor from East Falls Church to Rosslyn. The system extends green lights and shortens red lights when ART buses are behind schedule — resulting in a small but measurable impact.
The Falls Church city government continues to chip away at its staff vacancies, but faces ongoing challenges with public safety recruitment.
The 8% vacancy rate recorded across all city departments in early November “is, I think, the lowest we’ve been since the pandemic,” City Manager Wyatt Shields told members of the City Council’s government-operations committee on Nov. 26.
