Bill to Study Bringing Metro to Woodbridge & Centreville (Arlington: how much, house)

[Mr. Benz]

The proposed Northern Virginia Metrorail Extension Act (H.R. 907) calls for studying three possible Metrorail projects: extending the Blue Line through Woodbridge to Potomac Mills, extending the Orange Line to Centreville and extending the Yellow Line along the U.S. 1 corridor in Prince William and Fairfax counties.

"The bill would authorize analysis of and project development for extending the existing Orange, Blue, and Yellow Metro lines further into Northern Virginia to serve hundreds of thousands of additional Virginians and get more cars off of the region’s congested highways," according to a news release from Connolly's office.
The bill, introduced Thursday, was referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.


“Residents in Prince William and western Fairfax County already experience some of the longest commutes in the nation, and these communities will experience continued growth,” Connolly said in the news release. “We need to look at solutions that take cars off the roads and provide viable transportation alternatives for our citizens.

Read the full Article Here


Read the full bill Here




What are your thoughts?

[dkf747]

They should also study a line connecting Orange to Blue to Yellow out in the 'burbs.

[tysonsengineer]

They have that study already. Brown line, its why the Wilson bridge also is capable of a shared rail system.

As a heads up, WMATA has said that any new extensions will need to address river crossing issues at blue/orange/silver tunnel. So any expansion to centreville will end up costing much more because whoever proposes it will pick up the bill for the river crossing too.

Unfortunately, Maryland is not looking at any expansions, only their LRT purple line connector, so it looks like Virginia will be buying DC/MD a new tunnel most likely.

If you thought the pennywise/pound foolish folks were out about the silver line, wait till this plan gets legs and gets shut down when people find out it costs 3.5 billion dollars to tunnel the potomac, let alone the 2.5 billion needed to expand Orange to Centreville and 4 billion to get metro to Woodbridge. Then increase those numbers by 50% because the projected costs will become public (so contractors will know exactly how much to bid to get it) and because it won't get traction for another decade.

[ssa78]

The region badly needs more public transportation and Centreville and Woodbridge are reasonable extensions. You can argue that the orange line should go as far out as Gainesville or Haymarket because of the tremendous amount of traffic on 66 that extends that far.

There's no great time to agree to paying the bill for a project like this. But it is a necessary step for the region going forward.

A short term fix to relieve congestion (and pardon me if these exist but I just don't know about them) would be creation of express buses that are stationed in every suburb that go directly to DC within a reasonable amount of time. New York uses these buses to relieve pressure off the highways and the subways.

Not sure if those buses ever existed or do exist, but they definitely work elsewhere.

[johnsonkk]

Just expand the VRE to every 15 minutes and everyone that loves the metro can get off at Springfield or Alexandria (king st). Seriously, its crazy to think about spending billions when the answer (if one is needed) is to simple expand the VRE.

[ssa78]

Extending the VRE schedule does nothing to stem the mess that is 66 in the morning coming from the western suburbs. The area needs some logical solutions for that corridor to get people directly to Tysons, Arlington and DC.

[Oldhag1]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

They have that study already. Brown line, its why the Wilson bridge also is capable of a shared rail system.

As a heads up, WMATA has said that any new extensions will need to address river crossing issues at blue/orange/silver tunnel. So any expansion to centreville will end up costing much more because whoever proposes it will pick up the bill for the river crossing too.

Unfortunately, Maryland is not looking at any expansions, only their LRT purple line connector, so it looks like Virginia will be buying DC/MD a new tunnel most likely.

If you thought the pennywise/pound foolish folks were out about the silver line, wait till this plan gets legs and gets shut down when people find out it costs 3.5 billion dollars to tunnel the potomac, let alone the 2.5 billion needed to expand Orange to Centreville and 4 billion to get metro to Woodbridge. Then increase those numbers by 50% because the projected costs will become public (so contractors will know exactly how much to bid to get it) and because it won't get traction for another decade.

Dang... I was real excited there for a couple of posts. Spoil sport.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by ssa78

Extending the VRE schedule does nothing to stem the mess that is 66 in the morning coming from the western suburbs. The area needs some logical solutions for that corridor to get people directly to Tysons, Arlington and DC.

You're right. My comments should have started with "Woodbridge doesn't need a Metro expansion and I have no idea if expanding it west along 66 would help."

[brooklynborndad]

VRE improvement is likely the best solution for Woodbridge, and for Gainesville.

The most likely place for a metro extension is from Vienna to Centreville.

We will certainly need another metrorail crossing - WMATA correcly envisions it being from Rosslyn to Georgetown, where it could connect to a new metro rail line (seperated blue line) via the convention center all the way to Union Station, and beyond. Financing that will be complex - it seems logical to me that DC pay for the part from GTown to Union Station, Va for the tunnel itself - but the river is IN DC, so some fancy footwork involving the federal portion will probably be needed - I see no reason Md should pay for it, as it will have little direct impact on Md - most (99%?) ridership will be between DC and NoVa, and all the development opporunities (along the seperate blue line in DC, and along extended Orange line, etc in NoVa) willl accrue to DC and NoVa. Maryland meanwhile is going to be building the Purple line, the Corridor Cities transitway, the MoCo BRT system, and improved MARC service. They have a lot on their plate before they look to metro rail extensions.

Tysons is far from the point of having a large enough concentration of employment to justify the round the beltway heavy rail line. First lets try to expand express bus service on the HOT lanes.

However a use for the Wilson bridge that could relieve some of the congestion issues on the core lines, would be an extension of the Green line (or whatever color the new line is assigned) over the WW bridge, to King Street station, and then south to Huntington, west to Franconia-Springfield, or both. This would allow more blue-yellow trains into the district via a route other than the two existing crossings. And the green line route from branch avenue to Lenfant has capacity. Capacity north of Lenfant would be a constraint, which suggest the possibility of another north-south route across DC.

[Mr. Benz]

With the recent transportation bill, I hope they widen Rt. 28 between centreville and manasass, and widen route 1 in prince william all the down to the 234 junction before they do any extending IF they ever extend the lines