page_title: Silver Line (Washington Metro)
section_title: Planning
hierarchical_section_title: Silver Line (Washington Metro) / History / Planning
caption_attribution_description: English: D Route pocket track on the Washington Metro system, showing the interlockings and the signal. This pocket track is located northeast of the Stadium-Armory station, and adjacent to the D&amp;G junction, where the Blue and Orange Lines separate.
context_page_description: The Silver Line is a rapid transit line of the Washington Metro system, consisting of 28 operational stations and an additional six under construction. The line runs in Fairfax County and Arlington County, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The Silver Line currently runs from Wiehle–Reston East in Virginia to Largo Town Center in Maryland. Five stations are shared with the Orange Line alone, thirteen with both the Orange and Blue lines from Rosslyn to Stadium–Armory, and five stations with the Blue Line alone to both lines' eastern terminus at Largo Town Center. Only five operating stations and the six stations under construction are exclusive to the Silver Line, which began service on July 26, 2014.
  The 11.7 miles portion of the Silver Line between its split from the Orange Line and Wiehle–Reston East station is in Fairfax County, Virginia and was constructed as Phase 1 of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. Phase 2 expands the line another 11.5 miles to Ashburn in Loudoun County, via Washington Dulles International Airport, adding six stations to the line.
context_section_description: The federal government of the United States, which owned and operated Dulles Airport before Congress created the MWAA, built the Dulles Access Road in the 1960s to connect the airport to Washington, D.C. by way of Interstate 66. As the access road was built, the authorities opted to reserve the median of the road for some form of rail transit, and the nearby West Falls Church station was designed so that the line could eventually be extended in this direction. The original 1968 Metrorail plan included an eventual extension to Dulles airport. In 1969, U.S. Senator from Virginia William B. Spong Jr. tried unsuccessfully to have the extension to Dulles be built as part of an early stage of the system rather than having it be built at some unspecified time in the future. A 1971 study of the feasibility of Metrorail running to Dulles estimated that 30,000 people would ride the extension each day.
  In 1995, the Virginia General Assembly authorized the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) to provide for "additional improvements to the Dulles Toll Road and Dulles Access Road corridor including, but not limited to, mass transit, including rail and capacity-enhancing treatments from surplus net revenues of the Dulles Toll Road".
  In 1998, Raytheon engineers and constructors proposed to build and operate a Dulles Corridor Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. In January 1999, the Tysons-Dulles Corridor Group (which included Bechtel Corporation and West*Group) offered a competing BRT proposal that would ultimately extend the rail line to Ashburn. These proposals prompted the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to evaluate the merits of BRT and heavy rail public transit in the corridor.
  Local residents and officials had talked of a Metro extension to Dulles since the Washington Metro began service in 1976, but significant planning did not begin until 2000. The Dulles Corridor Rapid Transit Project "scoping" process began in April 2000 with a series of meetings with local and federal officials, designed to collect the necessary authorities for the project. Local and federal law required extensive Analysis of Alternatives – the two most likely being bus lanes or inaction – and of the environmental impact. The rail-only line won over the other alternatives. Initial environmental hearings, which closed on August 28, 2002, were positive. Although planners originally considered ending the first phase at Tysons, state officials decided that the first phase would end at Reston's Wiehle Avenue, partially to reassure the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority that the line would eventually run to Dulles Airport. The project received formal approval on June 10, 2004.
  In February 2005, the CTB approved a 50 cent increase in the Dulles Toll Road toll rates, effective May 22, 2005, and "reaffirm[ed] that no less than 85% of existing surplus Dulles Toll Road net revenues shall be dedicated for mass transit and rail in the [Dulles] Corrdor" and provided "that all additional toll revenue generated from the May 22, 2005 toll adjustment shall be dedicated to the [Metrorail] Project." Between July 1, 2003, and November 1, 2008, when the toll road was transferred to MWAA, over $138 million in net surplus toll revenue (together with accumulated interest) was provided to MWAA for the Silver Line project.
caption: As originally planned, Silver Line trains were to reverse course using the D98 pocket track east of the Stadium–Armory station. Safety concerns raised in December 2012 required service to extend to Largo Town Center.
exif: {}