The story
1980s
Beginning in 1973, Fairfax County had paid the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to provide bus service in the county. By the early 1980s, the county had become one of several local jurisdictions unhappy with the high cost and unpredictability of cost increases for the service, and in 1981 had commissioned a study—at the cost of $58,000—on creating a feeder bus service in the south-east portion of the county. This service was to be based around the Huntington Metro station then being constructed in that area of the county.
Based on three consultant studies, the last of which proposed that the county might achieve savings of $750,000, and the recommendations of county staff, the county in July 1984 directed implementation of this service. The county purchased 33 Orion buses from Bus Industries of America in January 1985 for $4.2 million, and awarded the $2.2 million contract for startup and first-year operations to National Transit Services in May of that year.
The first buses rolled out in September 1985 as a lower-cost alternative to the Metrobus service of the regional Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The original routes connected the southern part of the county (near the Mount Vernon Estate) to the Huntington Metro station which borders Alexandria. This area continues to be the core of the system, and is noted for the number of residents in the Richmond Highway area who use the service at all times of the day. It had ten routes, and numerous routes served Huntington Station. These first 10 routes were previously served by Metrobus. In 1988, The Connector began to operate express routes to connect to Pentagon station. It also expanded through the southeastern portion of Fairfax.
1990s
In 1990, The Connector took over the operation of the RIBS (Reston Internal Bus Service). Service continued to be provided through the southern portion of Alexandria when Van Dorn Street station opened in 1991. In 1994, the service was extended to the high-technology industrial areas of suburban Reston, and Herndon, located between Washington, D.C., and Washington Dulles International Airport. Along State Route 267 (the Dulles Toll Road), express buses carry commuters from free park-and-ride lots to the Washington Metro system. In 1999, the Herndon-Monroe Park & Ride and the Tysons Westpark Transit Station opened, extending their operation within the county.
2000s
In 2002, the Connector ordered its first buses operating on Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel fuel. The network expanded three years later with the opening of the Lorton Park-and-Ride, followed by the Gambrill Road Park-and-Ride in 2005. During this period, the system began integrating with the SmarTrip payment system, allowing passengers to utilize the WMATA run fare network. MV Transportation assumed operations from Veolia Transport on July 1, 2009.
2010s
Major changes began in 2010, when the Reston East Park-and-Ride closed to make way for the Silver Line construction. After the Silver Line opened in 2014, The Connector modified its service by providing three circulator routes within Tysons Corner, as well as new service to McLean. Many routes were modified to give riders the ability to transfer with the Silver Line and other portions of the network.
On July 1, 2019, Transdev commenced a five-year contract to operate the network with an option to extend for a further 10 years. In December 2019, Fairfax Connector workers operating under Transdev went on strike, reducing system operations to Sunday schedules and impacting approximately 30,000 daily riders.
2020s
On February 22, 2024, Fairfax Connector employees initiated a strike against Transdev, suspending almost all fixed-route services. Regular operations resumed the next month following a new collective bargaining agreement with the Amalgamated Transit Union.
From Wikipedia’s article on Fairfax Connector, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4