The City of Fairfax may have some funny ideas about what makes good urbanism, but for a small suburban jurisdiction they deserve credit for running a pretty darn good transit service. The CUE system operates a small fleet of buses running between Vienna Metro, downtown Fairfax, and George Mason University an average of every 8 minutes.

With frequent service and a built-in population of riders going between the Metro and GMU, CUE moves too many people for its existing 30-foot buses to crowd together. To solve the problem, the City ordered and recently took delivery of a batch of new, longer, higher capacity, low-floor buses. To up its green quotient, the City went with what will be the Washington region’s Northern Virginia’s first hybrid buses, which are even more clean than the natural gas vehicles run by several regional operators. The new buses, pictured below, also feature a nifty new paint scheme, which I’m proud to say I had a hand in designing.

The buses are currently undergoing testing at the City’s maintenance facility, but will begin full revenue service soon.

New CUE buses parked at their Fairfax maintenance yard.