Metroway is a bus rapid transit (BRT) line operated by the

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA ), commonly referred to as Metro, is a tri-jurisdictional public transit agency that operates transit services in the Washington metropolitan area. WMATA provides rapid transit servic ...

(WMATA) as part of their Metrobus system. It consists of a single line operating in Arlington and

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in Northern Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Washington, D.C., D.C. The city's population of 159,467 at the 2020 ...

. It opened on August 24, 2014. It was the first bus rapid transit line to open in

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and in the

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Route

The service runs from its northern end at the Pentagon City south through Crystal City and Potomac Yard before ending at the Braddock Road Metrorail station. The service runs along a bus-only roadway along Richmond Highway ( U.S. Route 1) in Alexandria between Potomac and East Glebe stations, as well as a busway in Arlington. The remainder of the service runs on mixed-traffic roadways.

Service

Metroway operates seven days a week with longer hours and more frequent service during weekdays. All runs take place on board the

New Flyer New Flyer is a Canadian multinational Bus manufacturing, bus manufacturer, specializing in the production of transit buses. New Flyer is owned by the NFI Group, a holding company for several bus manufacturers. New Flyer has several manufacturing ...

Xcelsior XN40 CNG buses with Metroway livery, which replaced the original NABI 42 BRT Hybrid buses on December 18, 2016.

Connections

As a WMATA Metrobus service, Metroway is integrated within the regional transit network, and is subject to the same fares and transfer rules as any other local Metrobus service. The , , , and stations offer service for the

Metrorail METRORail is the light rail system in Houston, Texas (United States). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . METRORail ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the List ...

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

and

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

lines. As it parallels the Yellow and Blue lines between Pentagon City and Braddock Road, it can be used as an alternative to Metrorail during service outages on Metrorail. The Crystal City VRE station is a short distance (0.1 mile; 160 meters) away from the 18th & Crystal station. Metroway provides connections to the Mount Vernon Trail at the 18th & Crystal station, and the Four Mile Run Trail at the South Glebe station.

Capital Bikeshare Capital Bikeshare (also abbreviated CaBi) is a bicycle-sharing system that serves Washington, D.C., and certain counties of the Washington metropolitan area, larger metropolitan area. it had 700+ stations and more than 5,400 bicycles. The memb ...

stations exist at or near several Metroway stations.

Expansions

Metroway has been expanded since its opening in 2014, both in number of stations and length of route. Two new stations opened in Arlington, both in April 2016. Fayette station in Alexandria opened in 2017. On April 17, 2016, the 33rd & Crystal and Pentagon City stations opened, bringing the total number of operating stations to 15. At the same time, a dedicated transit lane and a peak period transit lane opened in Arlington. While the Fayette and 33rd & Crystal stations are

infill station An infill station (sometimes in-fill station) is a train station built on an existing passenger rail, rapid transit, or light rail line to address demand in a location between existing stations. Such stations take advantage of existing train ser ...

s along the existing route, the addition of the Pentagon City station extended the route north, which changed the northern terminus from Crystal City to Pentagon City. The 33rd & Crystal stop offers two-way service, while Pentagon City, the new northern terminus, is southbound-only. The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board wants to extend the dedicated transitway in Crystal City North to the Pentagon City Metro station. Beginning May 25, 2019, as a result of the Blue and Yellow Lines being shut down south of National Airport for the summer, new stops were added on Potomac Avenue at East Glebe Road near the Kaiser Permanente and the National Institute for the Blind (NIB) Headquarters. As part of the

Amazon HQ2 Amazon HQ2 is Amazon (company), Amazon's corporate headquarters in National Landing in Crystal City, Virginia (part of Arlington, Virginia, Arlington County) in the Washington, D.C. area, and an expansion of the company's headquarters in Seattl ...

project, plans were made in 2019 to extend the dedicated transitway to the section between Crystal City and Pentagon City, and add new stops at 12th & Clark Street, 12th & Elm Street, 12th & Hayes Street, and Army-Navy Drive. Construction began in April 2022, with completion expected in April 2023.

Changes

As part of WMATA's Better Bus Redesign beginning on June 29, 2025, the Metroway was renamed into the A1X, discontinuing the Metroway branding. The route remained the same from the former Metroway counterpart.

Stations

There are 17 stations on the route. Twelve of the stations offer two-way service; three of the stations, 18th & Crystal, 23rd & Crystal, and , are northbound-only; and two other stations, 26th & Clark, 23rd & Clark, are southbound-only. The Metroway stations vary depending on location and jurisdiction, though all stations consist of

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

s and sidewalk-level bus stops.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Metroway 2014 establishments in Virginia Bus rapid transit in Virginia Transport infrastructure completed in 2014 Metroway