Alexandria is building a new $32 million bus garage that will allow the city to finally expand its DASH commuter bus service.
“The significance of all of this is we will have the capacity to store and maintain more buses, and that means that we can acquire more buses and have more routes,” Vice Mayor Del Pepper said.
The city has long planned to expand DASH service to meet increasing demand, but has had difficulty raising money for the new garage and new buses.
An Urban Funds grant from the Virginia Department of Transportation provided Alexandria with $35 million for the garage, but the city has yet to identify a funding source for new buses, Deputy City Manager Mark Jinks said.
Alexandria has 62 DASH buses. The new garage will have the capacity for more than 90 buses, with room available to expand capacity to 130 buses, city staff said.
In a May memo to the City Council, City Manager James Hartmann said expanding the DASH fleet from 62 buses to 128 buses would cost the city $30 million.
Under a plan devised by DASH officials, the new buses would be used to create service to the Eisenhower East and Potomac Yard areas, to improve service on King Street in Old Town and to “provide new cross-town service connecting new development areas to the rest of the city,” Hartmann said.
City officials said the new bus garage, which is planned for a 10-acre site along Business Center Drive, also can be used to house vehicles for the city’s proposed rapid-transit bus routes, Circulator buses or smaller neighborhood “feeder” buses — all of which are being considered as part of Alexandria’s Master Transportation Plan, which is scheduled to be finalized this month.
