The year was 1981, and the citizens of Alexandria were watching with anticipation the city's new Metrorail stations take shape. But City council, undoubtedly while sharing the citizenry's excitement, was also nervous. It had been a long-practiced, often abhorred, practice for WMATA to eliminate or restructure large portions of bus service with each subway opening, and the Council was worried about the impact the subway opening would have on Metrobus service within the city.
Accordingly, under the leadership of then-mayor Charles E. Beatley, City Council began the process of creating a local bus system much like Montgomery County (Ride On) and the City of Fairfax (CUE) had done in years past. A feasibility study, completed in 1982, recommended the creation of an 18-bus, five-route system to serve the needs of the citizens of Alexandria.
A Request for Proposals as developed in 1983, calling for management companies to develop a detailed operations plan; the City chose to create a non-profit public service corporation that would be owned by City Council, allowing the city to retain overall control over policy and the like without being saddled with the day-to-day operation of a transit system (Ride On and CUE are departments within their respective municipal governments). Thus, the Alexandria Transit Company was born.
City Council decided on a four-route system, and in November of that year approved a $2.25 million bond issue for the purchase of 17 buses. Ryder/ATE (now First Transit) was awarded the management contract, and in January 1984, their appointed General Manager reported for work. For two months, ATC hired and trained drivers, mechanics, dispatchers, and supervisors, and preparations were made for the first day of service, March 11, 1984.
In its first year of service on those first four routes, Alexandria Transit (which operated for some time without the brand name "DASH") carried 923,404 passengers. As Metrorail, and subsequently, transit use, continued to grow, DASH grew as well until it could no longer; today, Alexandria Transit operates 62 buses on ten routes from its facility on S. Quaker Lane that handled 32 buses when it first opened in 1991. The "fledgling" local bus system that many doubted would catch on in 1984 carried 3.5 million passengers this year, and ridership continues to grow as gas prices push people out of their cars.
To keep up with this growth, on May 28, 2008, Alexandria Transit broke ground on a new $30 million Maintenance & Operations facility on city-owned land adjacent to the current facility. This facility will be able to handle 130 buses, more than twice as many as DASH operates today, ensuring that the system can continue to meet the needs of its ridership base.