ART Celebrates Ten Years of Service

As of November, 2008, ART's distinctive green and white "wave" pattern buses will have been getting Arlingtonians where they want to go for a full decade. Since ART's first route was established in Arlington's Crystal City neighborhood in 1998, the system has expanded to ten routes throughout the County.

As the system has grown, ART has become an important transportation link for Arlingtonians, connecting Arlington neighborhoods to each other and to the regional Metro system.

Some of ART's landmark events are listed below. For more information, see the "About ART - Arlington Transit" page.

August 20, 2007: ART 41 expanded, ART launches eight new buses

Weekday service on ART 41 is increased to every 15 minutes from 6:30 am to 8:12 pm. Saturday service is increased to every 20 minutes from 10:00 am to 6:36 pm. Sunday service is increased to every 30 minutes from 10:00 am to 6:06 pm.

ART adds eight new heavy-duty buses to its fleet. The new buses run on compressed natural gas and are equipped with bike racks. They're larger than the older buses in the fleet, bus still smaller than Metrobuses.

Summary of media coverage of the event: 

• News Channel 8 at 4pm
• News Channel 8 at 7pm
• ABC 7 at Noon
• ABC 7 at 5pm 
• Express – On Thursday, August 23rd a brief on the new ART buses was included in the print edition of the paper while a more detailed piece featuring photos provided by the County was in the online version. 
• Washington Post – On Sunday, August 26th the Dr. Gridlock made note of the new buses in his column and included a quote from Arlington Transit's own Bobbi Greenberg. 
• The Sun Gazette – Scott McCaffrey wrote a piece previewing the new buses on August 20th after seeing one at the County fair. He noted the record demand for ART service and highlighted the vehicles’ accessibility features.
• The Connection – on Tuesday, Aug. 28th, the Arlington Connection published David Schultz's report on the new ART buses in their "This Week in Arlington" Section.
• Update Arlington – AVN featured ART on Update Arlington with this week’s host, Jim Byers, delivering the update from inside one of the new buses as it traveled the busy ART 41 line.

Arlington Transit & Commuter Services FY06 Highlights (PDF)

July 1, 2005: ART 41 expanded, ART 66 discontinued

Two hours were added to the ART 41 weekday schedule, starting the third bus at 10:00 am instead of 11:00 am, and adding one loop to the last bus, 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm). Five hours were added to the Saturday/holiday schedule (going from an 11:00 am - 6:00 pm schedule to 7:00 am - 7:00 pm).

ART 66, the free Clarendon-Court House Lunch Loop was discontinued due to low ridership and a lack of funding from private partners.

September, 2003: ART 73, 74, and 75 Pike Ride Service

As a first step toward developing a high quality transit system for the Columbia Pike corridor, WMATA and the Arlington County Department of Public Works worked closely in developing a comprehensive Metrobus service restructuring plan. These improvements were in response to comments and concerns gathered over the past five years through numerous studies, meetings, surveys, and public hearings. This new “family of services” which included brand new ART Routes 73, 74, 75 together with the existing ART 41 and the new and improved Metrobus 16 Line were marketed together and called Pike Ride - More Places, More Often, More Columbia Pike.

Pike Ride simplified the current route structure from 12 routes to seven (Routes 16A, B, D, E, G, H, and J) and concentrates the majority of service on Columbia Pike between the Pentagon, Pentagon City, Baileys Crossroads, Culmore, and Annandale. Most of the neighborhood branches in Arlington served by regional Routes 16C, G, U, W, and X were replaced by Arlington Transit (ART) Routes 41, 71, 72, and 73, as well as portions of proposed all-day Routes 16G and H. A total of approximately 400 weekday, 240 Saturday, and 200 Sunday trips are now operated on the Arlington portion of Columbia Pike, representing an overall service increase of 53 percent in the corridor.

Beginning on Sunday, September 7, Metrobus and Arlington Transit began operating the new and improved Pike Ride service. ART 73 - Arlington Heights - Penrose - Pentagon City, ART 74 Nauck - Douglas Park - Arlington Village - Pentagon City, and ART 75 Wakefield H.S. - Carlin Springs Rd. - Ballston were all brand new routes.

The ART 74 buses were overwhelmed with passengers on the first couple days and by the third day an additional bus was added to the route.

For additional information about Pike Ride visit www.CommuterPage.com/PikeRide.

April, 2003: ART 41 - Columbia Pike - Ballston Mall – Court House

Over 300 Metrobuses operate daily in Arlington. Cris-crossing the county, the bus routes are great for going east and west, or north and south, but not both ways. Traveling from the Southwest part of the county to the Northeast sector required 1 or 2 transfers, and was time consuming. ART 41 was designed to connect these sectors with a single trip bus route. ART 41 also connects the Dept of Human Services Headquarters with areas of the county where DHS clients live. Operating 12 hours a weekday, a bus comes by every 30 minutes for service. Arlington again purchased 3 CNG-powered ADA-accessible buses for this service. Distinctive ART bus stop signs were installed, some sharing the Metrobus stops. At the ART stops, information holders were installed with information in English and Spanish, to reach out to the large Hispanic community along Columbia Pike. Schedule brochures were also printed bi-lingually – in English and Spanish. ART 41 was started on April 7 2003. ART 41 has been highly successful. Its first week of operations, ART 41 carried 1,000 passengers. During the second week it carried 1,650 and by the end of the third week 2,140.

March, 2003: ART 66 – Clarendon-Court House Free Lunch Loop

With the successful start and operation of the ART 67 and 91, the Clarendon Alliance (association of businesses) approached the County with the idea of starting another free lunch loop for the Clarendon-Courthouse area. Again, the Alliance offered to pay for the operating costs. With no spare bus to wrap, ART utilized one of the ART 61 rush hour-only buses. ART produced bus stop signs in reverse ART colors – gold on green – with information holders at nearly every stop with schedule and map information. ART 66 was started in March 2003 and operated until July 1, 2005, when it was discontinued.

February, 2003: ART 61 – Rosslyn – Court House Metro Shuttle

County staff identified a need for a neighborhood shuttle to serve the Metrorail stations at Rosslyn and Court House. The neighborhoods of North Highlands and Radnor Heights are very hilly and intersected by 3 major highways, making it difficult and dangerous to get from the neighborhoods to the Metrorail stations by walking. The streets within this area are narrow inhibiting the use of large buses. Designed as a 10 minute shuttle during rush hours, the ART 61 route was again outfitted with ART bus stop signs, information holders with schedule and map information at every stop.

ART 61 operates weekdays during the rush hours with 2 twenty-five foot ADA-compliant CNG buses which were purchased for this service. The route is circular, with one bus going clockwise and the second going counter-clockwise. Started in February 2003, ART 61 gives this area a transit choice for the first time.

December 2002: ART 91 – S 23rd St. Restaurant Row Shuttle

With the successful start and operation of the ART 67, the restaurant association on 23rd St. South in Crystal City was interested in starting their own Free Lunch Loop service. The Association contacted Arlington County to discuss how the entities could work together to assist them in bringing more clientele to their area. ART did not have another spare bus that could be “wrapped” and the association had a limited budget. An agreement was reached were the associations raised the operating funds and made signs which were placed on one of the existing buses (used only during rush hour). ART in conjunction with the association designed a new route flag and schedule. The route flags were added to selected existing ART stops and a few new stops added in front of the restaurants, with information holders with schedule and map information. With these in place ART 91 was introduced in December 2002. “The Restaurant Row” Shuttle traveled around Crystal City on its way to 23rd Street every twelve to fifteen minutes, weekdays between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM, until it was discontinued July 3, 2003.

September, 2002: ART 67 – Ballston-Va Square Free Lunch Loop

In the spring of 2002, the marketing department at the Ballston Common Mall (BCM) came to the County with an idea for a Free Lunch Loop. With parking at a premium during the day in the BCM area, their thought to increase lunch traffic in the mall and food court was to provide free shuttle service to/from the BCM. Identifying nine business/restaurant partners to contribute funds to marketing and operating the shuttle, an agreement to start service was developed. An older spare bus was wrapped in a distinctive blue color, with graphics and logos of the partners. Distinctive circular bus stop signs and information holders (with schedule and map information) were installed at each stop. ART 67, (the Ballston-Virginia Square Lunch Loop) was launched in September 2002; it operates between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm weekdays making the trip around Ballston area every twelve minutes.

July, 2001: ART 51, 52

In spring of 2001, an opportunity arose when the Virginia Hospital Center – Arlington (aka Arlington Hospital) submitted plans to construct a new, very large building on site, which meant closing a 500-space surface parking lot to begin construction. Working with Arlington County, the hospital set up a TDM program, to encourage the employees (who could not drive to work for 18 months due to the closing of the parking lot) to car pool, van pool, bike and take transit to get to work. Concerns about adequate bus service to handle the expected increase in riders prompted the hospital to ask Arlington County for a solution. The solution was to design a route to supplement the Metrobus route 10, which served the hospital from Ballston to Lee Highway. The hospital provided $150,000 for the first year of expanded bus service, while Arlington County covered the remaining operating costs from general funds. Arlington County purchased 3 CNG-powered ADA-accessible buses for this new ART service.

Designed as a 2-stage launch, ART 51 service started first, in July 2001. This route supplemented the existing Metrobus 10 route by operating an ART 51 bus between each Metrobus, effectively doubling the service to the hospital. The second stage of the launch was on December 30, 2001. ART 51 was expanded and ART 52 (serving the hospital from Ballston and East Falls Church Metrorail stations) was added, utilizing 2 of the new CNG buses. The Metrobus 10 route was terminated at Ballston Metrorail station, and ART 51/52 took over all service west of Ballston. The savings from reducing the Metrobus 10 service (approximately $320,000 a year) helped fund the new ART 51/52 service.

Originally ART 51/52 was designed to handle 600-800 passengers a weekday. The service experienced tremendous growth from the first week, topping off at over 1,100 per weekday! ART 51 monthly average went up to over 14,400 and the 52 averaged over 8,500! This exceeded the estimated ridership by a large margin. Continued ridership growth adversely affected the ability for the two buses to stay on time. A high day was experienced on January 30 with 1,440 riders! Needless to say, the two buses could not stay on time! A “strategic” bus was assigned to help with the rush hours – picking up runs to help the other buses stay on time.
Staff reviewed the ridership and daily driver trip sheets, charting the peaks and trouble spots, and surveyed the riders. From this information, a revised schedule, employing 2 buses all day and 3 buses during rush hour, was created, tested and, after printing new schedules and information tube inserts, was put into place February 16, 2002. The new schedule has been successful –buses are on time, customers are pleased, drivers are satisfied with the headways. By the end of the first full year of operations ART 51 carried 104,000 passengers and ART 52 carried 53,000.

November, 1998: ART 90

Arlington Transit (ART) bus service was “launched” in November 1998 in Crystal City with new buses and a new marketing approach. Arlington County worked with Pulsar Advertising to devise a color scheme and logo for the new ART buses. Each bus was painted with a distinctive green and white “wave” design. New bus stop signs were designed to match the logo on the buses. Schedule brochures were created to continue the logo and color scheme. Our marketing department set up our web page, Arlingtontransit.com, to promote the new service on the web.

Arlington County purchased four ADA-accessible thirty-foot (30) buses built on a Freightliner chassis for the ART 90 service. Two are diesel-powered and two are CNG-powered. Each coach is equipped with twenty-six fixed seats and two wheelchair spaces.

ART installed its distinctive bus stop signs at twenty-two locations for the first route. Attached to each pole are tubular information holders. Distinctive maps and information posters were created and installed in each of the information holders. Posters were produced and distributed throughout the service area; these are displayed in the lobbies of buildings served by each route.

ART started service with ART 90, a rush hour service (6:30 – 9:30 am and 3:30 – 6:30 pm), operating with 10-minute headways. ART 90 serves the Crystal City Metro Rail station, the Virginia Railway Express station, and buildings in Crystal City.

ART 90 is a unique service in that it is funded as a public-private partnership. Nine of the Crystal City building owners are partners with Arlington County, and split the operating cost of the rush hour service. The partners contribute about $70,000 annually for the operation of this service.