Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)'s "first phase" of its Better Bus plan begins in Fairfax County, where 7,000 bus stop signs are being upgraded to indicate the new bus route names.
A big part of the new plan will rename every bus route according to a simple and predictable set of rules. Every new route name will consist of a prefixed letter indicating the jurisdiction the route primarily serves, a number for neighborhood or transit corridor, and a suffixed number or letter to help further differentiate similar routes or denote it's an express service route, as laid out in a YouTube video from WMATA introducing the changes:
- "A" for Arlington/Alexandria
- "C” (crosstown) or “D" (downtown) for DC
- "F" for Fairfax City and Falls Church (and presumably Fairfax County, too)
- "M" for Montgomery County
- "P" for Prince George's County
- Express Routes are indicated by an "X" at the end of their names
More details of the phased rollout are found at WMATA's announcement.
Starting June 29th, I'll be excited to take the F62 from my home in Arlington out to the Mosaic District, which I rarely go to since it's been so inconvenient with my car-free lifestyle. And as a member on Arlington County's Transportation Commission, I'm interested to see possible cooperation between WMATA and Arlington Transit in our own bus route naming.
Hat tip for this from a post by Tom Roussey of ABC7 over on Bluesky.