New Bus Service Between Shirlington, Clarendon and Court House Begins June 8

At a time when other places are cutting back on transit service, Arlington is showing it's commitment to building a sustainable community by adding new bus service. Beginning Monday, June 8 the new ART 77 Shirlington-Lyon-Park-Court House line opens. Buses will run every 30 minutes, 6:00 am to 7:55 pm weekdays with key stops including the Shirlington Bus Station, Walter Reed Drive, Lyon Park, Clarendon and Court House. The service provides an important North-South or cross-County connection between the R-B Corridor and the emerging and exciting urban village of Shirlingtonand the neighborhoods in-between.

And on June 29, Shirlington will get enhanced service on the new ART87 Pentagon Metro-Army Navy Drive-Shirlingtonline. The ART 87 replaces ART 82 and Metrobus 22B with service six days a week.

Both of these routes will be served by brand new 35-ft. low-floor clean CNG vehicles (pictured here). Arlington Transit just took delivery of 12 of these beautiful buses and they'll also be used to replace some older buses on other routes.

If you live or work in Shirlington or just want to access some of the great restaurants, shops, theaters or new library, this is a good day. Now you can leave that car at home and go green with ART.

Chris Hamilton is the Commuter ServicesChief for Arlington County in the Transportation Division of the Department of Environmental Services, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.

Comments

[Tim]

Why are there almost no stops between Shirlington and Penrose?

[Ellen]

This is wonderful news for those of us Shirlingtonians who would love to visit Clarendon/Court House (and vice versa) but hate dealing with the parking and so avoid the area. However, stopping the bus service at 7:55 pm really doesn't allow us to enjoy the restaurants/theaters (I don't qualify for the early bird specials...yet). Rather, it makes the assumption that people will use the bus primarily for commuting to the metro stations there (which don't need added traffic on the already overcrowded orange line). What gives? When will local transit planners realize that unless folks can be assured of making a convenient round trip on transit, they'll always opt for their cars? And I'm a TOD groupie by the way.

[Chris Hamilton]

Hi Ellen. Thanks for the nice note. I agree with your comment. If you want more service I suggest writing your Arlington elected officials. I'd look at it this way. Service often starts like this. People make comments like yours and soon we're adding more buses for more frequency and lengthening the span of service over the course of the day and then adding Saturday and Sunday and then adding more and more to that. This is exactly what has happened to the ART 41 service over the last 2 years. No promises, but keep riding and keep the suggestions coming!
Chris

[Steve Yaffe]

Staff will monitor ridership on the new ART 77 and the ART 87 (which started today!). We will recommend schedule changes and night service as ridership builds. Adding service has a budget impact. Adding midday and night service is less expensive, as additional buses aren't required.

[Steve Yaffe]

ART 87 riders - ART will be adding a "Tripper" bus in the mornings. The schedule won't change. However, a few high ridership trips to the Pentagon will be served by a second bus running through Avalon Bay and by Horizon House.
The ART 87 is a combination of the old ART 82 and Metrobus 22b. We've been pleasantly surprised by ridership increases on the ART 82 in the past month. This is a good problem to have - and we will deal with the ridership demand.

[Brian]

Took the ART 87 for the third time since it started June 29th. Steve, I have to ask, when is this "second bus" through Avalon Bay and Horizon House supposed to run? Was on the 6:44 bus at S. Adams and 26th Street South in Avalon Bay and the bus was 7 min. late. We are supposed to arrive at the Pentagon at 6:53. We did not arrive for the second straight day until after 7:05. We were packed in there like cattle and the driver kept yelling at everyone to move behind the yellow line. No seats at all by the time the bus got to Avalon Bay. Secondly, I noticed the driver takes a route to the Pentagon bus station that gets us stuck and delayed with traffic coming off 395N HOV lanes. We just sit there at the stop sign and the driver makes no effort to advance the bus. Realize the service just started but it doesn't seem like the drivers know the stops or where they are and they can't seem to keep it on time. I would like to know about this second bus in the morning and afternoon running between the Pentagon and Avalon Bay. If it's not in service yet, may I suggest in between 6 & 8:30 the bus running in the morning and 4 and 6 in the evening. As an avid 22B metrobus rider this seems to be the busiest time for the bus. You can reach me at my email at roobrian@gmail.com , Thank you.

[Steve Yaffe]

The new ART operations and maintenance contractor, Forsythe Transportation, takes over at midnight tonight. Bus operators will have more detailed instructions as to passing timepoints on-time. Supervision and Dispatch have additional instructions. The schedule for the "tripper" bus - the 4th bus for the ART 87 - is being finalized. This bus will serve the highest peak period peak direction trips along with the regularly-scheduled bus. We are smoothing out service delivery on the ART 87, with our apologies.

[ANGRY]

I've been biting my tounge as to whether or not to say anything but the gentlemen who drives the 6:30 bus from Shirlington CANNOT keep it on time what-so-ever. He's done it since the route started on Monday. We are never picked up on time, this morning it was 6:50. I know the next stop is actually supposed to get picked up at 6:44. This morning everytime we stopped he waits a minute before opening the door so he can hand out pens? Is this a small gesture to appease everyone because he is continously late? I don't want a pen, get here on time!!!! There seems to be no "rush" in his step. Also, not sure he even understands traffic signals as we continually get stuck at 395 N traffic at the Pentagon like a previous blogger said, and we sit at the stop sign letting tons of traffic go in front of us. We should be turning a block earlier to avoid this. Even when the officers are directing traffic and waving us through which supercedes the stop-sign, he STOPS!!!!! An officer's signals ALWAYS supercedes traffic signs/lights. I wanted to scream! I need to get places on time and this is not working. What should be a fairly easy commute is getting more difficult. It's getting to the point of ridiculous. It seems that either A. Arlington Transit has to cut Army Navy folks off and give them a seperate bus and Shirlington a seperate bus or B. a new driver is needed to actually get us moving because this one doesn't get it and it's obvious! We should be arriving at the Pentagon at 6:55ish. We got there at 7:08 this morning. Almost a 15 min. disparity and that could have been worse if other stops had people at them. It's completely unacceptable! I realize it's a new route but you would think the gentlemen never drove a bus before! I see the answer above about "instructions" about passing timepoints but obviously this guy is not getting those instructions. I can go on and on but it's exhausting to know your commute is going to be awful everytime you wake up. Someone needs to fix this.

[David]

Steve,
I also have to agree with Brian and ANGRY. I was an avid Metrobus 22b rider, and so far I'm not impressed at all by ART. I'm willing to give ART the benefit of the doubt, realizing that kinks still need to be ironed out. There needs to be more buses running in the morning, at least until 9am; and in the evening, say up until 7pm. I ride the 87 and it's jam packed before it is even 50% through its pick-ups. This morning there were at least 15 people standing in the aisle (including a little girl). What were to happen if the bus driver needed to stop short for traffic? Injuries. If ART can fix this, I will once again be a happy customer like I was with metrobus. And please have the 87 drivers make the left turn into the Pentagon Reservation at "S Fern St" and NOT "S Eads St", as the two previous gentlemen have stated.

[Steve Yaffe]

RE: New ART 87 Already Crowded, Help Is Here

As you know, Arlington Transit (ART) added a new ART 87 Pentagon Metro-Army Navy Drive Shirlington route this past Monday absorbing the ART 82 and Metrobus 22b. You can see the route map and schedule at http://www.commuterpage.com/art/87main.htm . Beginning with the first day, ridership especially in the Nauck neighborhood (former ART 82 route) has exceeded projections and caused overloads on selected morning peak period trips to the Pentagon. ART has responded by adding one additional bus to cover these trips to alleviate the over-crowding.

Peak period service frequencies are every 20 minutes – same as the Metrobus 22b. On Monday evening and a few trips in the mornings, ART 87 buses have run late due to oversight issues. These issues are being resolved. We expect that the ART 87 will be run as well and be more attractive than the Metrobus 22b.

The blog posts that I have read have been helpful in this effort. Thanks. Please continue to let me know how you like the 87. Hopefully, Shirley Park, The Grove and Avalon Bay residents will also use the 87 to reach Shirlington’s restaurants, shops and movies (see link http://www.commuterpage.com/art/villages/Shirlington.htm ) as well as taking it to the Pentagon. Thank you for riding ART.

Steve Yaffe is the ART Operations Manager for Arlington County Transportation in the Department of Environmental Services.

[Steve Yaffe]

RE: New Arlington Transit (ART) Operations and Maintenance Contractor

ART buses are operated by a private sector company under contract to Arlington County. Oversight of the contract, policy, administration and marketing responsibilities reside with Arlington County Transportation Transit staff. A new company was selected for this work: Forsythe Transportation. Forsythe’s first day running ART is today, July 1. Forsythe’s proposal to run ART was unanimously selected for several reasons including their seasoned management team, oversight and supervision strategies, maintenance experience, and best overall value to the citizens of Arlington County. We expect to see a higher level of service as a result. Let us know how we are doing. And welcome to Forsythe!

Steve Yaffe is the ART Operations Manager for Arlington County Transportation in the Department of Environmental Services.

[Steve Yaffe]

David, thank you for your suggestion: "please have the 87 drivers make the left turn into the Pentagon Reservation at "S Fern St" and NOT "S Eads St".

We are trying the routing out now - good call.

[Jennifer]

The driver of the 6:30 bus is a consistent 10-15 minutes late to the Pentagon each morning. We are missing trains......what is to be done about this? It seems that the driver really doesn't understand the bus. Sometimes he opens up the doors when there are no stops.....sometimes he opens one door...sometimes both. It's becoming a little frustrating.

[David]

Steve,
While I appreciate your quick response, I think I have had enough with riding the 87 and will find an alternative means of transportation. There is absolutely no consistency or reliability with the ART87. I'll explain. The drivers did try the new route into the Pentagon Reservation by turning 'left' at S Fern St. It worked great, for a day, until they reverted back to making the 'left' at S Eads St. This whole week I've been asking myself, why are the drivers continuing to use S Eads St? Well today, the driver chose to use S Fern St. Just like some days the 87 is "on time" and some days it's "7 minutes" late; as it was today. Yesterday, I tried catching the 5:43 bus from the Pentagon, to no avail, because half of the people waiting at the stop were turned away because of capacity issues, only to stand and wait for the next bus (20 minutes later) which also had capacity issues. I counted "21" people standing in the aisle on the 6:03 bus. It seems like ART is trying to go for a record, to see how many people it can get standing in the aisle before something has to be done. So much for the "tripper" bus that was to run during peak hours to help aleviate the over-crowding. Nobody knows when the tripper bus runs, or what its schedule is, it seems to just run at random times. This morning, I saw (3) ART87 buses on Army-Navy drive at the same time. Consistency, reliability? definitely not. My morning commute should not give me a headache and put me in a bad mood before I even get into work, after all that is what work is for. Unfortunately for you, you have to listen to customers like myself on this blog, so I guess I'm giving you the headache now. I might give ART another try in say 6 months, to see where things are at, but for now, I'm taking my bussiness elsewhere (and lowering my stress level at the same time).

[Jatin]

Steve,

It looks like the trippers are finally starting to run consistently and when properly executed, I have noticed that they greatly help ease the load on the 87 route. However, I have noticed that a significant majority of the time the driver of the primary bus fails to acknowledge the existence of the tripper bus. That is, the primary bus driver continues to overload the primary bus while stopping at every stop on the route (including the crowded stops in the Avalon). Thus, the primary bus is overcrowded when it arrives at the Pentagon while the tripper is empty (i.e. this morning, the primary bus had 20 people in the aisle while the tripper arrived right behind us with several empty seats). This not only seems inefficient but also appears to be a waste of fuel and resources invested in the tripper bus. Is there a communication bus set up between the drivers to let the primary bus driver know that the tripper bus will pickup at crowded bus stops and that the primary bus (if relatively full), should continue on to Pentagon?

[Jatin]

*Is there communication system setup between the drivers to let the primary bus driver know that the tripper bus will pickup at crowded bus stops and that the primary bus (if relatively full), should continue on to Pentagon?

[Steve Yaffe]

Communications is key. Bus operators going to the Pentagon in the morning peak have been instructed to coordinate so that the front bus displays "Bus Full" when it is full and the second bus does the pickups on the 22B portion of the route