The Falls Church Insider All About the City of Falls Church, Virginia, For & By The Folks Who Live & Work There

My plan was to have two more posts in this series on GEORGE.  This post was going to be a fun one kicking around various grand ideas for a modern solution.  But I’m starting to burn myself out on the GEORGE issue and the City Council is moving through the process quickly (they had a budget working session Thursday night where they discussed the GEORGE issue).  So, I decided I’ll just cut to the chase and let you know what conclusions I’ve come to after all this thinking.

Okay, I’ll quickly mention some ideas that won’t work (at least not now).  The original idea for GEORGE was to be cutting edge and use electric buses - how cool is that?!  Turns out the City lost a good chunk of money (actually, more like some regional and federal money) on this idea as the two vendors they tried couldn’t produce reliable buses.  While electric buses would be cool - they’re still just buses driving around on streets based on a schedule.

What about a streetcar solution (either an actual one or a tolly-like bus)?  It would be less formal than a bus but could be cute and might even be more useful for residents getting around town.  Light rail and unground subways probably wouldn’t work out for us.

It’s too early for a flexible schedule system - where people request rides/routes via the internet and a system of vehicles are intelligently routed in real time to accommodate riders.  The technology is probably close to being there but the people who would use the system aren’t ready for something like this.  I’m sure someday (20 years?) we’ll see solutions like that - especially in a small place like Falls Church.

While we’re kicking around unrealistic ideas - what about a modified guided bus solution where the buses could drive around town picking people up and then travel on existing rails (like Metrorail) to other destinations.  I know, that’s crazy.

Okay, okay, back to reality.  What do I really think we need to do?

1. Switch to shuttle buses.  For example, the DASH bus in Grand Rapids.
2. Change the routes so they don’t duplicate Metrobus.
3. Implement night and weekend service that provides access to entertainment and dining locations.
4. Come up with a drop dead simple routing model (like the color coded lines that Metrorail uses) that makes it easy for residents to know where the bus goes and allows restaurants to easily explain how to use it (e.g. “Get off the Metro at East Falls Church and take the Red GEORGE bus to stop 6″).
5. Change the name (sorry, I know some people like it but nobody knows what service the bus provides.  If you get off at the East Falls Church metro and see a GEORGE bus what do you think it does?  Maybe takes to you George Mason University?  What if the bus was called something boring like the Falls Church Shuttle - you might know what area is serves).

Until these plans (specifically the move to shuttle buses) can be implemented we need to keep the existing GEORGE running.  If we can save money in the short term by cooperating with Arlington’s ART system then that’s a good idea.  Even dropping the mid-day service to save money until we can make the jump to shuttle buses is probably okay.

If we shut down GEORGE now it will be next to impossible to bring a new shuttle bus service online anytime soon.  Also, while 70,000 trips per year isn’t a lot if we just shut GEORGE down we’ll lose those loyal users.