Redesigning a System by the People, for the People

Transit Apocalypse: This was the phrase the community of Alexandria, Va., coined this past summer when the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) shut down its Metrorail stations in Alexandria from Memorial Day to Labor Day due to station platform deterioration and its state of disrepair.

For Fiscal Year 2019, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) reports 13,355 average weekday boardings at Metrorail stations in Alexandria. Shutting down access to Washington, D.C., and beyond had a big impact on residents. During the shutdown, the Alexandria Transit Company (DASH) knew it had to be part of the solution.

“We raised our hand and said we're here to help,” said DASH CEO and General Manager Josh Baker.

DASH partnered with WMATA to provide a replacement shuttle service for the Metrorail Blue Line. To do this, DASH grew its fleet from 85 buses to more than 130 in the course of about two to three months and increased its workforce from just shy of 200 employees to more than 330. The company recruited people from all over and “scraped” together buses wherever it could.

“Some of the [buses] we got had actually been retired from service, so we rehabilitated them...and reentered service with those,” Baker explained.

In just under four months, Baker says DASH provided half a million passenger trips, which equates to about one eighth of the entire system’s annual bus ridership.

“We walked away from the project as being recognized as one of the most successful solutions in mitigating the challenges,” Baker said. “We’ve very proud of how that shows how a relatively small transit system [can solve] a community issue on a large-scale basis.”

A smaller system with big city needs

Fast forward to today and DASH is still focused on how a relatively small system can best serve a larger urban area. The city is just under 15-square miles with a population of just over 144,000 according to the 2010 Census. Yet, DASH provides about four million passenger trips a year with a fleet that’s just under 100 buses, according to Baker. And the city says its population is expected to reach just under 160,000 in 2020, inclining Baker to believe there’s a pent-up demand for transit.

“We’re attempting to prepare ourselves to support a more densely urban area,” Baker said. “I believe there’s a pent-up demand. I think we’re going to hit a turning point and all of a sudden, we’re going to start [to] see the demand significantly increase.”

To prepare for this increase, in early 2018, DASH started drafting the Alexandria Transit Vision (ATV) Plan, which includes two phases: one is the short-term, or 2022, network plan that will be implemented starting in summer of 2021 and the second phase is the long-term, or 2030, network plan, which is the final vision of what DASH is building towards over the next seven years.

Martin Barna, DASH’s director of planning and scheduling, explains the ATV Plan entailed redrawing the entire bus network with the intention to make the system more useful and to encourage more passenger trips outside of peak periods, which made the network analysis completed at the start of the project quite different from previous analyses.

“We wanted to...have a discussion about what the fundamental purpose of transit should be for Alexandria – not just go in and start designing routes,” Barna said. “We had to think at a high level of what the priorities should be.”

DASH started the process by collecting community feedback about key tradeoffs to determine if the new system was going to be ridership oriented or coverage oriented, Barna explains. Questions posed to the community determined if they were willing to walk a bit farther if it meant more frequent service or if they’d be willing to make a transfer if it meant a shorter commute. After reviewing input from the community, DASH’s transportation commission and its board of directors, it was determined the new system would be ridership oriented.

The new and final network design was adopted by the board in December 2019 and now provides frequent, all day routes that run throughout the entire city, with routes estimated to run every 15 minutes or better, seven days a week.

“It’ll be very advantageous for the city as a whole, but especially for our more vulnerable residents [such as] low income, minority and senior residents, [who] will see major increases in access to that highly frequent, highly useful transit,” Barna said.

Under the ATV Plan, access to transit will increase to 120,000 residents versus the 40,000 with current access; access to transit for low-income residents will increase from 29 percent to 89 percent; and access to transit for minority residents will increase from 22 percent to 87 percent.

Not only does the ATV Plan increase access for the city’s current residents but it also prepares DASH for the city to become more densely populated and for the upcoming arrival of Amazon headquarters at National Landing. The southern area of National Landing is Potomac Yard, which comes into Alexandria and will include a soon-to-be-constructed Metrorail station.

“There’s a whole lot of density that’s being built up around that future [Metrorail] station,” Barna said. “Before Amazon was announced, we knew there was going to be a whole lot of density there...so we’ve already been building towards a very frequent service to that area.”

The service is expected to come across the city and to the Potomac Yard area, allowing for easy connections up to Crystal City and the Amazon headquarters.

Realizing a long-term vision

In light of this increase in population density, and with more frequent service coming in 2021, DASH is working with the city to implement proposed dedicated transit corridors and dedicated right of ways. As of now, DASH has one bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor in operation, Route 1 or Metroway, with two more corridors included in the ATV Plan. These BRTs aim to provide more frequent and expanded service.

NVTC reports DASH’s annual ridership has gradually declined from 14,233 average daily boardings in FY15 to 12,550 average daily boardings in FY19, fairly consistent to FY18 which averaged 12,912 weekday boardings. Baker explains while DASH’s ridership decline has started to level off and looks to be on the rebound, this doesn’t prevent some push back.

“We’ve looked at expansion and often take criticism when people say, ‘Why are you expanding when your ridership is declining?’ The answer is that there’s that pent-up demand potentially,” Baker said.

But Baker notes demand is only one factor. Better quality service could attract more riders. Part of that quality service translated to improvements on DASH’s AT1 and AT9 routes. DASH was able to significantly increase headways on these buses after receiving funding from the Commuter Choice on the I-395/95 corridor, a program administered by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and in partnership with the commonwealth of Virginia and the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission. The funding is generated from a portion of toll revenues collected on the 395 Express Lanes, which began when two high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes along an eight-mile stretch on Interstate 395 were converted to three reversible high-occupancy toll lanes.

“The creative way Virginia set up the agreement with the operator of these lanes is that initial revenues beyond the base contract allocations are diverted to alternative transportation projects,” Baker explained.

This means entities along the corridor can apply for funding to support alternative transportation projects such as bikeway or pedestrian way improvements. DASH applied and received two Commuter Choice Grants which will cover more than $5 million in capital and operating expenses for the AT1 Plus and AT9 routes for Fiscal Year 2020-2021. Service enhancements on these routes began in October 2019.

The AT1 route was rebranded with specially wrapped buses to the AT1 Plus route thanks to these service improvements, which increased peak headways from 15 minutes to 10 minutes and off-peak headways improved with longer hours of service. Solar-powered, real-time displays were installed to provide bus arrival information.

The AT9 route also saw an increase in peak headways from 30 minutes to 20 minutes and off-peak headways improved with longer hours of service. Funding also allowed DASH to begin a brand-new Sunday service on the AT9 route, which has been averaging more than 250 riders per day.

“The effects of that funding and that expansion of service are a demonstration of the goals of the ATV Plan,” Baker said. “[This is the] first step for us in the implementation of the plan and [it has] already shown what an impact that makes on the usability of that service.”

And there’s more service to come

The AT1 Plus route serves as a precursor to the West End Transitway BRT and is meant to build ridership in the corridor before the BRT is scheduled to open in 2028. This route is planned to run between the Van Dorn Street Metrorail station and up to the Pentagon area with key stops at Landmark Mall/Van Dorn Street commercial areas, Kingstowne, the Mark Center and Shirlington. This route has received preliminary funding and is starting to move forward, according to Baker.

The other BRT corridor, Duke Street, is in the early planning stages and would connect Alexandria to Fairfax County to the west. This corridor would serve the Eisenhower East area, Landmark Mall, Foxchase, Alexandria Commons, portions of Old Town and the King Street Metrorail Station.

Alexandria’s third BRT, Metroway, began service in 2014 and is operated by WMATA. This corridor runs between Pentagon City, Crystal City and Alexandria. 

Since Metrorail runs along city limits, it’s difficult to serve the broader population, and with Alexandria being a densely populated area, DASH needed to identify key areas of where it could provide frequent, quality service to more residents. DASH identified these three BRT corridors in a feasibility study completed in 2012 as the best areas to provide enhanced services in more areas of the city.

“We have a lot of density [and] the city is growing,” Baker said. “We’re working hard to try and be focused on the future and being prepared for that.”

Providing more than better service

With these service improvements coming to fruition, DASH is working to ensure the community can make use of the system easily and efficiently. Specifically, DASH has diverted resources to improve its real-time offerings to provide more useful information for riders. So far, DASH has installed real-time passenger displays throughout the system at bus stops and transit centers.

“[We’re really] trying to reduce the barriers of not knowing when your bus is coming,” Barna said. “We’re also trying to improve the accuracy of our real-time information [because] if the information is not accurate that can often be a hindrance.”

DASH is also expanding into the mobile ticketing realm thanks to a year-long pilot with the DASH bus app, which allows riders to purchase bus fares from their phone. With the mobile ticketing pilot coming to an end, Barna says DASH will look into how it can expand that to a more regional offering and incorporate other rider amenities into the app such as trip planning and real-time information.

“We are, as far as I know, the first bus agency in our area to do a mobile ticketing app,” Barna said.

Building towards a greater transit vision

Whether it’s creating a transit system that works for everyone or providing more useful information to make use of said system, DASH keeps the community in mind. From the conceptual design of the network to the individual routes, the community informed DASH of how they wanted to see the service evolve to serve the average rider, not just the nine-to-five commuter.

“Providing higher quality service will draw more people to the system,” Baker said. “...We expect a lot of people to locate themselves in Alexandria. It’s an easy commute; it’s a great community [and] they’re going to have to ride DASH and Metrorail to get to work.”

By providing more relevant service and more useful information, DASH is working to provide a system that is by the people and for the people.