WASHINGTON — The Potomac Yard Metro Station is quickly moving forward, and the latest step came Thursday as a Metro committee voted in favor of a future public hearing on the project. The full board will vote later this month to advertise the “compact public hearing,” likely for a date in April.
Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille, also a Metro board member, says the National Park Service and Federal Transit Administration, both of which need to approve the project in order for it to advance, have promised him that they will also act on the project soon. The draft environmental impact statement could be released by the end of the month.
The infill station on the Blue and Yellow lines will be paid for through a combination of a new local tax district around the station, federal money, regional Northern Virginia transportation dollars and a $50 million loan from the State of Virginia that was approved this winter.
“It’s the economic engine for Potomac Yard to continue to be developed, grow and expand, not only for us locally in Alexandria, but the entire region,” Euille says.
The station would serve existing neighborhoods such as Del Ray and the area around the Potomac Yard Shopping Center, and support a larger, 7.5 million square-foot mixed-use development along Route 1 east of the existing railroad tracks.
“It’s a $4.5 billion development project overall,” Euille says. “Without a Metro station stop in Potomac Yard, half of that total square footage would be developed.”
Supporters hope that adding the Metro station, along with the new MetroWay bus service that debuted last summer along Route 1 between Alexandria and Arlington, will help relieve or at least limit the extent of traffic problems in the corridor.
Euille says he hopes the Alexandria City Council will vote in April, but no later than May 12, on a specific location for the new Metro station from among the options presented in the environmental impact statement.
If other steps in the process go according to plan, Euille says construction could start as soon as late 2016, and the station could open in 2018.
The second phase of the Silver Line, carrying riders to and from Loudoun County and Dulles Airport is also slated to open in 2018.
