Commuting from Ashburn Village to Bethesda (Reston, Falls Church: how much, living in, cost)

[bakababa]

Hello,

I'm about to start a new job in Bethesda and wondering what is the best route to commute from Ashburn Village. Would it be Route 7 to 495 or Toll Road to 495? How much the toll is going to cost me? I heard the greenway is expensive. I'm also thinking of taking a bus from Lansdowne to West Falls Church and ride metro into Washington DC on Orange line and switch to the Red line to Bethesda station. It will probably cost me 2 hours at very least each way! However, driving will probably take the same amount of time in traffic.

Is there anybody here who commute to Bethesda from Loudoun area? Let's car pool

BB

[SteelCityRising]

I'm new here so please pardon my ignorance, but are there really no bridges across the Potomac between I-495 and Point of Rocks, MD? Living in North Reston it would open up a world of opportunity for me to be able to cross a bridge from, per se, Great Falls, VA over to Potomac, MD.

[normie]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

I'm new here so please pardon my ignorance, but are there really no bridges across the Potomac between I-495 and Point of Rocks, MD? Living in North Reston it would open up a world of opportunity for me to be able to cross a bridge from, per se, Great Falls, VA over to Potomac, MD.

Yes, there really are only the two bridges, and complicating it further the Point of Rocks bridge can't be widened because of a historic constraint (civil war site).

The debate about building another bridge has been raging for decades, but every time they think they've found a site on the Virginia side that could possibly work, they can't find a reasonable way to connect it to the Maryland side. And vice versa. Not only do they have NIMBY problems, but there are historic civil war sites up and down the river that cannot be touched. The best route, IMO, would be continuing Rt 28 all the way to the river and then crossing there. But fat chance that's ever going to happen!

If you get sick of the bridges, you can always try crossing the river using White's Ferry. But IMO that takes even longer.

[normie]

Isn't there a VRE station near Point of Rocks? Maybe that would be the smarter route (cross the river on Rt. 15, and take VRE). Just a wild guess, I've never tried this commute.

[michgc]

In Maryland, it's the MARC Train, not VRE. The problem with taking White's Ferry across is that you then have to come down I-270 along with everyone else commuting into the city from Germantown, Gaithersburg, Rockville and points beyone. I think your best bet is the Toll Road to 495. That's how my co-worker from Reston commutes to Rockville.