Pike Ride is a combination of

bus route A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for ...

s along Columbia Pike in

Northern Virginia Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is a widespread region radiating westward and southward from Washington, D.C. Wit ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. It consists of service operated by the

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA ), commonly referred to as Metro, is a tri-jurisdictional government agency that operates transit service in the Washington metropolitan area. WMATA was created by the United States Co ...

( Metrobus) and

Arlington Transit Arlington Transit (ART) is a bus transit system that operates in Arlington County, Virginia, and is managed by the county government. The bus system provides service within Arlington County, and connects to Metrobus, nearby Metrorail stations, ...

(ART), connecting the

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek language, Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is ...

and

Pentagon City Pentagon City is an unincorporated neighborhood (also called an "urban village") located in the southeast portion of Arlington County, Virginia, near The Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. Location Pentagon City is located less than a mil ...

Washington Metro The Washington Metro (or simply Metro), formally the Metrorail,Google Books search/preview

stations in

Arlington County Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...

with

Annandale Annandale is a name for several places around the world: United Kingdom *Annandale, Dumfries and Galloway, a strath in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland Australia *Annandale, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney *Annandale, Queensland, a suburb of ...

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, ...

. The service started in 2003. Route timetables and other useful information were implemented in numerous bus stops along the corridor, printed in both English and Spanish. ART provides cell phone users with an 800 number that is listed at each bus stop to call and obtain bus schedule information.

Routes

The following routes are branded as Pike Ride service:

History

Robert L. May Robert L. May (July 27, 1905 – August 11, 1976) was an American retailer. He was best known for creating the fictional character Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Early life Robert Lewis May was born in Arverne, Long Island, New York, and grew ...

of Barcroft began operating buses along Columbia Pike in 1921, running from downtown Washington over the 14th Street Bridge to Barcroft. Among other additions, he acquired the former

Washington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon Railway The earliest electric railway, or streetcar line, in Northern Virginia opened in 1892. At their peak, when merged into a single interurban system (the Washington-Virginia Railway), the successors of this and several other lines ran between d ...

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mort ...

in 1930 and replaced it with buses in 1932. May incorporated the Alexandria, Barcroft and Washington Transit Company in 1934. This company continued independent operation until February 4, 1973, when WMATA acquired it.

Improvements

Since 2003, some effort has been made to improve service along the corridor. In July 2016, the Arlington County Board approved a Transit Development Plan that includes enhanced bus service along Columbia Pike. There will be 23 enhanced bus stops, with BRT-like amenities like near-level boarding, real-time bus arrival information and off-vehicle fare collection. This proposal, called a Premium Transit Network, has since been delayed until 2019 due to Metro rebuilding efforts. The use of dedicated lanes for the corridor was studied by the country, but were deemed to be challenging and unlikely. The buses could have a distinctive appearance.

References

External links

CommuterPage.com
Pike Ride {{Transit In DC Bus transportation in Virginia Metrobus (Washington, D.C.) Transportation in Arlington County, Virginia