The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) has embarked on a new round of community engagement in its Envision Route 7 effort to upgrade transit options.
NVTC has opened an online feedback form, asking a host of questions about how bus riders in the Route 7 corridor between Seven Corners and Alexandria’s Mark Center/Southern Towers areas currently interact with the system, and what they would like to see in the future.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has approved the elimination of two Fairfax Connector bus routes and reduced schedules on more than a dozen others to trim $7.3 million in budget costs.
The vote on Tuesday (May 5) was unanimous but, in several cases, unenthusiastic.
The intercity bus service FlixBus is expanding its presence in the D.C. region with new stops in Tysons and Fredericksburg.
Launching today (Thursday), the Tysons stop on Gosnell Road at Leesburg Pike (Route 7) will provide service to Richmond and the corridor from Bethesda to New York City.
Recent proposals to use part or all of the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Regional Park for future transit options are non-starters, the body controlling the right-of-way says.
“Similar proposals have been discussed previously and have been determined to not be viable,” NOVA Parks officials said in a March 11 posting on the regional body’s website.
Fairfax County is likely to receive most, but not all, of the funding it is seeking through a regional transit grant program.
The county’s request for just under $4.4 million in funding to support a new limited-stop Fairfax Connector service between the Tysons and Franconia-Springfield Metro stations has been removed from the list of projects being considered for the fiscal years 2027-2028 I-66 Commuter Choice funding cycle.
Transit advocates have dusted off a 60-year-old proposal to add transit operations along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Regional Park.
The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) has received more than 60 requests in recent months to consider the concept, executive director Kate Mattice said at the body’s March 5 meeting.
Fairfax County officials are working on ways to reduce financial subsidies required to support Capital Bikeshare — with finding a countywide or regional sponsor as one potential option.
That would make the local rental bicycle and e-bike service more like Citi Bike in New York City, which is able to run without taxpayer subsidies thanks to high volume, somewhat higher rider costs and a financial partner in Citigroup.
Fairfax County officials sent mixed messages last Friday (Feb. 13) over General Assembly progress, or lack of it, toward dedicated transit funding for Northern Virginia.
Legislation to establish dedicated transit funding is unlikely to be acted on during the month remaining in the 2026 legislative session, county staff reported at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Legislative Committee.
Fairfax County supervisors voiced cautious optimism last Tuesday (Feb. 3) about Metro’s proposed fiscal year 2027 operating and capital budgets.
“A financially stable and reliable transit network is essential to the economic vitality of Fairfax County, Northern Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia and the entire metropolitan region,” county leaders said in a letter to Valerie Santos, who chairs the Metro board of directors.
Lower-income Fairfax County residents rely more on their own vehicles to get to and from work, and are less likely to be able to telework throughout the week, than those at the top of the income spectrum.
Though not necessarily surprising, the data from the 164-page 2025 State of the Commute report recently issued by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) does have public policy implications.
