Against my better judgment (given what I think is an overheated real estate market), I am househunting in Arlington, Virginia. Houses that are walking distance to the Metro are attracting the most speculative fervor, with traffic jams forming at open houses. So, I started researching which neighborhoods were in what I assumed were on less desireable express bus routes. I figured that with the Orange Line already overcrowded, and no money for new trains in sight, express buses would become more popular, and houses near express bus routes would become more desireable. Guess what? There is only a single express Metrobus route that runs through Arlington to D.C. One. And it doesn’t run along the most logical route, which would be Arlington Blvd., a broad avenue with plenty of bus stops which bisects Arlington into north and south. And it only goes into D.C. as far as Fourteenth Street, N.W., avoiding most government agencies and the Capitol.
Every other bus route, express or otherwise, goes either to an Arlington metro station or the Pentagon (in Arlington and itself a metro station). I take it that the bus routes were created when Metro trains were still relatively new and hurting for customers, and the idea was to feed them with the buses. Now, the Orange line is straining its capacity, and large sections of Arlington live within walking distance of perfectly sensible express bus routes (Arlington Blvd., Columbia Pike), but not Metrorail. The obvious sensible solution would be to invest in some express buses. I don’t know if this in on the table, or if the powers-that-be in Arlington are just too wedded to the longstanding vision that all must worship exclusively at the altar of the Orange line. Any Arlington politics mavens out there who know what’s going on?
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