Metro riders in Northern Virginia can add six new rail connections to their commutes—including Washington Dulles International Airport, Reston, Herndon and Eastern Loudoun County—with the opening of the Silver Line extension, adding 11.4 miles of track to the Metrorail system and beginning operations at a modern rail maintenance facility.
The Silver Line extension’s grand opening marked the completion of the Silver Line project, a generational infrastructure investment in Northern Virginia.
“A little background here: Dulles Airport opened in 1962,” said Dean Miller, national sales manager for Visit Fairfax. “At the time, it was way out in the woods, and they built it way out there because that’s where they could get the huge amount of land they needed. It was the first airport anywhere in the world that was built specifically to accommodate jet aircraft.
“So, they’ve got it all the way out 40 miles from downtown Washington, D.C.,” Miller continued, “and they said, ‘Well, how are people going to get back and forth?’ They’d build a rapid transit link between the airport and downtown Washington, D.C.”
At the very last minute, funding for the link was cut from the airport budget, Miller said, and the median they created to build the railway on sat empty for more than 50 years. The city saw growth over those 50 years, and its borders stretched outwards to meet the airport, turning the stretch of road between Dulles International Airport and Tysons into a row of high-tech companies known as the Dulles Corridor.
Yet, despite the undeniable development seen in buildings repping logos including Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon, the project to extend the metro line didn’t begin until 2008.
At approximately 2 p.m. EST on November 15, 2022—14 years after breaking ground—the first Silver Line passenger train left Ashburn Station, headed eastbound as one of the largest capital construction projects in the U.S., providing transit service between the Dulles corridor and Downtown D.C.
“What’s great about it, from a meeting planner and meeting attendee point of view, is that you now, for the first time, can get off an airplane and hop on the Metro and go to a restaurant or to Tysons or to big corporate centers, or you could go straight downtown or anywhere in the metro area without changing trains,” Miller said. “You don’t have to rent a car. You don’t have to hail a cab. You can just get on the Metro and go.
“The maximum fare on the system, from any point to any other point—even during peak hours—is six dollars, which is a tough deal to beat,” Miller said.
Groups meeting along the Silver Line and in Fairfax County can stay in hotels like Hyatt Regency Tysons Corner Center and The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner and take the Silver Line downtown to Capitol Hill, visit the White House and see the national monuments at their leisure.
“And you can even purchase Metro fare cards in advance if you’ve got a big group,” Miller added.
To learn more about the Silver Line extension, visit www.wmata.com.
