Arlington calls for aid, and Alexandria will answer.
Alexandria’s City Council is scheduled to vote at a meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 26, to support neighboring Arlington’s funding application for an expanded Shirlington Transit Center.
buses
Four Alexandria teenagers were robbed by six masked suspects on Monday (July 31) at a bus stop in the West End, according to police.
The juvenile victims, all 16 years of age, were not injured in the incident. At around 9:15 p.m., the victims were waiting at a bus stop near the intersection of Duke Street and N. Donelson Street when the suspects pulled up in a black Toyota Corolla.
Alexandria’s DASH network has set a record high with 4.5 million boardings in a single year, according to the transportation company.
DASH said in a release that the record high boardings exceeded the previous ridership high of 4.3 million in 2015. DASH credited the success to a mix of taking the network fare-free and realigning the system to prioritize frequent service in higher-density corridors.
A pair of grants totaling $38 million should help boost Alexandria’s electric bus fleet ambitions.
The City of Alexandria and the Alexandria Transit Company (DASH) have been awarded $24 million from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in grants to expand its electric bus fleet and continue high-frequency bus service.
Electrification may be the future for Alexandria’s DASH bus network, but officials say diesel buses are still the present.
In a meeting with Alexandria’s Transportation Commission, DASH General Manager Josh Baker said maintaining good repair comes ahead of all other goals and cited Metro as a warning of what happens when transportation systems work the other way around.
Alexandria’s DASH bus system has been going through a pair of ambitious, headline-grabbing overhauls, but city leaders are still working out how to pay for them.
In 2021, DASH went fully fare-free, meaning anyone could ride a DASH bus at any time without paying for a ticket. At the same time, the bus network has been undergoing a full-electric conversion, gradually swapping out all of the diesel buses for electric buses.
Alexandria is hoping a federal grant could help push Alexandria’s DASH bus network a little closer to full electrification.
A memo from Deputy Director of Transportation Hillary Orr to the Transportation Commission said the city is hoping federal funding can help cover a sizable budget gap looming for electric bus replacement plans.
Alexandria’s Duke Street transitway could have dedicated bus lanes, but it’s unlikely they’ll run the full length of the corridor.
At a presentation to the City Council on Monday, city staff offered a look at how plans for the Duke Street transitway plans are coming together.
Nearly half of Alexandria’s bus stops do not meet federal accessibility standards.
It’s been a good couple years for Alexandria bus service DASH, but a new report presented to the City Council at a meeting this week by Chairman David Kaplan highlighted areas where there’s still room to improve.
Recent data showed the DASH bus routes to the Pentagon are some of the most widely used in the system, and those lines could see delays this week due to a lane closure.
Alexandria’s DASH bus system put out a service alert that a lane closure could cause 15-20 minute delays this week for lines 35, 103, and 104.
The theme of this week’s stories has been transit.
Lots of transit news around Alexandria this week, from Potomac Yard getting a new opening date to a new dashboard that allows for an easy tracking of Alexandria’s transportation statistics.