Arlington Transit (ART) Route 75 will receive nearly $400,000 in extra regional funding over the coming fiscal year, allowing Arlington officials to increase frequency from the current once every 30 minutes.
The extra funding will be provided by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) through its “Commuter Choice” initiative. Funds come from tolls paid by drivers on Interstate 66 inside the Beltway.
The $397,160 financial augmentation is relatively small – 15 approved projects are sharing about $30 million in overall funding for the fiscal year that begins July 1 – but will allow the service to run three times an hour as it makes 40-minute runs between Shirlington and Virginia Square, with intermediate stops at Wakefield High School, along Carlin Springs Road and into Ballston.
Whether the funding is the best use of transit dollars was an open question to those who took part in an NVTC survey on the projects. Some argued that the bus line was little used and already heavily subsidized, and wanted cash placed elsewhere; others suggested more frequency would lead to more ridership.
(One respondent swung for the fences, suggesting that ART 75 service should be expanded to 5-to-10-minute intervals, perhaps operating 24 hours a day.)
In 2023, just under 125,000 riders used ART 75, slightly above pre-pandemic levels. For the first three months of the year, just under 40,000 rode the line.
ART 75 funding was the only Arlington project to make the new list of projects set for funding. The $31 million to be allocated is well within the $40 million to $60 million that is available.
