Arlington County Pulls Three ART Buses Following Crash

Arlington County announced Monday afternoon that it had pulled three of its compressed natural gas buses from its fleet after one such bus was involved in a morning crash due to brake failure.

A hybrid bus in the North 45 line was on a moderate-to-sharp incline on North Barton Street on Monday morning when all of its brakes failed causing it to drift backward into other vehicles, according to a county news release.

The release continues:

The driver of one of the vehicles was transported to Virginia Hospital for observation as a precautionary measure. No passengers on the bus were injured. Arlington County Police investigators described the damage to the vehicles as minor.

Safety is our priority. At this time, the cause of these failures has not been determined; therefore, Arlington County has removed all three of our CNG electric hybrid buses from service pending a complete and thorough investigation of the incident and the vehicle.

A representative of the vehicle manufacturer, DesignLine, is onsite, and Arlington has requested that a detailed forensic analysis be conducted in cooperation with Arlington County and our ART operations and maintenance contractor, National Express, to determine the cause and possible remedies.

The ART fleet consists of 44 vehicles, three of which are powered by compressed natural gas.