Why Metro Won't Open Phase 2 Silver Line Stations as They Are Built, and Other Friday Bummers

A while back, our BFFs at Reston 2020 had a modest proposal: To keep the fancy Wiehle Avenue Metro station/geometry playset from being the traffic-snarling terminus of the Silver Line for at least a half-decade, why not open each Phase 2 station as construction is completed, instead of waiting until construction finally snakes out into the particleboard nirvana of Loudoun County? We were particularly psyched, as the kids today no longer say, as taking the Metro from Wiehle to Reston Town Center would reduce the travel time from Restonian World Headquarters to the Macaroni Grill by at least 2 minutes -- and if we have to wait until 2018 for the RTC station to open, our favorite carb-intensive eatery will be long gone.

But we digress. It turns out there's a good reason staggering station openings won't work after all:

MWAA spokeswoman Marcia McAllister says it is impossible to open station by station, unless a rail yard is built along with each station as it is opened.

"The phases were designed this way to ensure the continuity of the operating systems," says McAllister.

"The Wiehle-Reston East Station is designed to be a temporary terminus station and includes tail tracks for storage of rail cars."

Bummer, but having seen the seminal mass transit documentary Thomas the Tank Engine, it makes sense that there needs to be a place for the Really Useful Engines trains to sleep park. And since Metro has already managed to royally screw up the turnaround arrangements on the other end of the Silver Line, it's probably best not to tempt fate here.

But no worries! In the same article, Supervisor Cathy Hudgins tell us that traffic won't be any worse once the 2,300-space parking garage opens.

"I live one block from Wiehle Avenue, and I don't think it's going to have any more gridlock than we have today," says Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins.

"Will there be some hard days in the beginning? I think you're right. But the larger part of the message is that it's an asset coming here."

No arguments there, but we're guessing that 2,300 extra cars on two roads are going to have a soupçon of impact on the traffic situation. Reston 2020 and others tend to agree:

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation is currently working on projects to help ease congestion.

"These improvements include roadway expansions and the addition of turning lanes to facilitate the movement of traffic in areas near Silver Line stations and, in the case of Phase 1, the addition of temporary bus bays to the north side of Wiehle from the eastbound Dulles Toll Road," says Nick Perfili, Dulles Rail planner for the Fairfax County Department of Transportation.

Perfili says the level of service grade at the Wiehle Avenue and Sunrise Valley Drive intersection is currently a "D." He says the planned improvement would keep the intersection at its current grade. Without any improvements, it is projected that the intersection would get an "F."

The level of service measure grades intersections on an "A" to "F" scale based on traffic flows, wait times, and the space between vehicles. Level A is wide-open and Level F is total gridlock.

Fairfax officials hope adding 15 new Fairfax Connector routes in Reston will encourage more people to ditch their cars. The routes for the buses are still being finalized.

"The more cars we take off the road, the better. Each Silver Line train that leaves will take nearly 1,000 people, and that is 1,000 cars off the road, every 6 to 10 minutes," says Hudgins.

Our Reston 2020 BFFs have put together a report suggesting steps to be taken to address the transportation issues, including improved pedestrian, bus, and auto access to the station from the south of the Toll Road, where the fancy pedestrian bridge ends in a privately owned parking lot, as well as the creation of residential parking districts, better access for buses, and alternatives to single-occupant car trips to the station. Since we'll be stuck with this arrangement for at least five years, hopefully it's not too late to put some of these into place before the first train chugs in later this year.