Transit Vision Round 2 Outreach Completed

The City of Alexandria and Alexandria Transit Company (ATC) are in the midst of an Alexandria Transit Vision (ATV) effort to revamp the City’s DASH bus system. Round 2 of a public engagement process focused on receiving input on two bus service concepts based on Ridership or Coverage. In general, the feedback skewed slightly more towards the “Ridership” concept, but concerns were raised about its impact on seniors and individuals with limited mobility. Carlyle Council has a representative serving on the ATV Stakeholders Group.

Of the trade-offs and priorities guiding how a transit network should be designed, the most important of these trade-offs is “Ridership” vs. “Coverage”. A bus network designed based on the “Ridership” model seeks to maximize ridership and fare revenues by increasing the amount of bus service in places where people are more likely to find it useful. This typically leads to high-frequency bus service in high-density corridors connecting major trip generators. By comparison, the “Coverage” model of network design seeks to spread more bus routes across a wider geographic area so that more people and places have access to service.

At the end of Round 2 outreach, the ATC Board met to provide guidance to the project team on the development of a draft recommended bus network, as well as near term and longer term service levels, based on the input received on the Ridership concept and Coverage concept. The Board recommended that the ATV network be designed with approximately 85 percent of service hours dedicated to ridership oriented goals. Approximately 15 percent of service hours should be allocated for coverage type services, with an emphasis on maintaining transit access for areas with significant numbers of seniors and individuals with limited mobility.

The project team will be developing a Draft ATV Network in late August and present it to the ATV Stakeholder Group at a final workshop in September. The project team will be going out to the public in September for the final round of engagement, before a final recommendation is made to the ATC Board in late 2019. For more information, please visit the Transit Vision project website, contact the project team at transitvision@alexandriava.gov or check the Carlyle Council website for updates.