Alexandria leaders have joined counterparts from across the region in voicing reservations about a proposed consolidation of local bus systems in Northern Virginia.
If enacted, the proposal would roll Alexandria’s DASH system into a broader future operation spanning two counties and two cities that would have a service area totaling about 450 square miles and a population of more than 1.5 million.
The consolidation concept is “problematic,” City Manager James Parajon said at an Oct. 21 roundtable convened by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT). The state agency has been tasked with considering the impacts of a potential Northern Virginia bus system consolidation and reporting back to the General Assembly in December.
“We have an unknown and uncertain world we’re living in right now,” Parajon said. Moving from local to a regional service model would represent “a greater separation from our customer base,” he said.
“The neighborhood focus is really critical,” Parajon said.
Four bus networks are being studied for a potential merger: Alexandria’s DASH, Arlington Transit, Fairfax Connector and Fairfax City’s CUE. The regional Metrobus service operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is not being considered for consolidation.
At the Oct. 21 session, representatives from each of the four impacted jurisdictions said that while greater collaboration would be welcomed, full-blown consolidation would not.
“We want our systems to work better,” Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins said. “We want all of Northern Virginia to be better coordinated and for every rider to have better opportunities. For us, though, we truly believe ‘better together’ does not mean merged.”
It was a message repeated often throughout the 90-minute meeting.
Arlington County Board member Maureen Coffey said consolidation would be an involved process that “doesn’t seem like the best use of anyone’s time.”
Turning that local autonomy over to a regional bus operator “is really hard for us to get on board with,” she said.
Another Arlington board member, Takis Karantonis, said he appreciated the discussion and acknowledged a need for “better coordination” between the bus systems. But like Parajon, he pointed to the flexibility provided by more localized oversight.
When an issue arises, “we can tweak it,” Karantonis said. “In a bigger agency, this will be highly problematic.”
The same view was voiced by Fairfax County officials, who also wondered whether the consolidation discussion was a solution in search of a problem.
“I did come here … with an open mind, open to any compelling reason [to support consolidation],” said Walter Alcorn, a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. “I’m still looking for it — I don’t see it.”
The study will not recommend for or against consolidating but simply present facts and analysis, DRPT director Maria Zimmerman said at the forum, held in Arlington.
“There are some pros and cons,” Zimmerman said, suggesting final decisions would have to be “guided by the political will here in Northern Virginia.”
At present, the political will seems to be summed up as “collaboration, yes; consolidation, no.”
Martha Coello, deputy director of the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, said local governments and the transit agencies already are working to implement strategies that were part of the regional DMV Moves study that proposed funding options to sustain the future of local public transit.
“Getting through that is really key,” she said.
Like Coffey, Coello pointed to the ability of local governments to respond best to individual needs of transit users.
“We are dealing with very localized concerns,” she said. “It would be very challenging to meet all of those types of needs in a regional setting.”
Those who came into the process wary of consolidation seem to have had their concerns validated by a study conducted for DRPT by the consulting firm Kimley-Horn.
Its analysis suggests a merger would take four to six years to implement and might lead to a consolidated system that is more expensive to run than four separate ones.
Further, “the potential efficiencies from a service perspective are relatively minimal,” said Lucas Muller of Kimley-Horn, who delivered preliminary findings at the Oct. 21 meeting.
Muller said one of the major challenges would be finding common ground in four systems that have evolved differently over the decades:
- ART, CUE and Fairfax Connector are owned by localities, while DASH is independent of the Alexandria government
- ART and Fairfax Connector use a contractor to provide service and employ workers, while CUE and DASH employ their workforces directly
- DASH and CUE currently do not charge fares, while ART and Fairfax Connector require riders to pay
- Fairfax Connector, DASH and ART have unionized workforces, while CUE does not
Feedback obtained from local leaders will be incorporated into the final report delivered in December to the legislature, said Sarah Husain, Northern Virginia transit-programs manager for DRPT.
Combined, the four local systems transport more than 19 million riders a year — about 20% more than Metrobus in Northern Virginia — over 112 fixed routes. Fairfax Connector has by far the largest network of the four.
