Photos & Videos: Transit in Northern Virginia

[Nabinut]

Spending a frosty and cold New Years' eve in Northern Virginia (Barely touched DC) Here are some content from three area carriers:

Fairfax Connector:

FXC New Flyer D40LFR 9707 posed at the crossover between the station and parking garage"

RTS 7853 loads up a slew of passengers (waiting in line) at West Falls Church Metro:

One of the Newest buses in service, 9601 leads a line of Fairfax & Metrobus equipment:

Alexandria DASH:

Gillig Phantom 56 of 1999 Vintage lays over at Van Dorn Metro:

Orion V 70 in Downtown Alexandria:

Arlington Transit:

NABI CNG 40LFW #5273 at Ballston Metro on Route 42. This line was taken over from Metrobus:

The newest equipment are a batch of NABI Restyled CNG buses, 5254 is seen at East Falls Church Metro:

CUE (City University Energysaver):

CUE Gillig Phantom 823 at Vienna Metro:

New Gillig BRT Low Floor 831:

WMATA Metrobus:

New Flyer DE37LFA #3751 at West Falls Church:

Videos:

Video of the day's events:

Fairfax Connector Orion VII NG #9792:

Fairfax Connector New Flyer D40LFR #9612:

Alexandria DASH Gillig Phantom #56:

Arlington Transit CNG NABI #5254:

Metrobus Orion VII CNG #2603:

[Busjack]

I'm somewhat surprised that apparently a pre-1995 RTS and an Orion V are still around and still apparently in good shape.

The 37LFA looks a little too small to pull off that livery--it looks like it has a big butt (I guess all that red, plus the fender).

Apparently, Jermantown is spelled correctly for that application.

Finally, it appears that there are still a number of "independent" operations in the WMATA area. Do they all share the extremely confusing WMATA route numbering system?

[Nabinut]

The RTSs were confined to Route 980, an weekday only route. The Jermantown spelling i couldn't believe either, thought it was an f-up. The 37 footers do look weird, that was the first of 20 as well.

Lastly, all the operators have have their own numbering system. In fact WMATA has been chopping off some of their routes and giving it to them to balance the budget

[Busjack]

I looked at a couple of these providers' websites. It looks as though several Virginia counties or cites, although part of and subsidizing WMATA, feel that service is inadequate and run their own, even though WMATA took over the various private operators in the early 70s. Although CTA and Pace don't get along that well, that would sort of be like Lake County not contracting with Pace, and starting its own bus service (instead of whatever deal Highland Park has with Pace, or trying to run service outside of Waukegan independent of Pace North). The only example of something like that around here might be Downers Grove, although it still has to go through Pace to get an equipment grant.

No wonder that the DASH site had a PowerPoint basically saying that Arlington is cutting back its subsidy, and hence the routes have to be seriously cut.