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Too bad there isn’t any bus service between this station and downtown Leesburg over the weekend. I’d head there today (Saturday).

Man I wish Maryland could get a silver line type thing and get a metro extension to BWI that would be amazing

Best anime crossover ever!!!

During rush hour, silver line sees a ton of people between Arlington and Tysons. Trains aren't crowded but they are very well utilized. I'm glad Fairfax County wants to develop Tysons more, but I feel like Fairfax isn't willing to go all in. Arlington knows how to make a really high quality walkable area, Fairfax needs to learn from that. Some part of me doubts how well Fairfax will do considering nothing is being done to downsize the mega 8 lane stroad that is Leesburg Pike, any of the I-495 interchanges, or the massive amount of parking. (thankfully they're getting rid of that Chain Bridge Rd-Leesburg Pike interchange though)

I own a home within walking distance of Glenmont 😊

I think the picture at 4:18 is the LIRR west side yard

You said that you did not have any other stations to compare Washington DC station to for good connections to get around. Most of the northeast larger city stations have good connections with both local and intercity busses and commuter rail. New York City is most likely the biggest station for connections. You have the Long Island Railroad serving the whole island. New Jersey Transit trains terminate here and you can connect with that service at any station Amtrak stops at from Trenton to New York City. In Philadelphia we have an extensive commuter rail network serving the greater Philadelphia suburbs as well as local service from Wilmington , DE to Philadelphia. You also have a line from Philadelphia to Trenton, NJ where you can connect with Amtrak or NJ transit local trains to New York. Finally if you get to Boston you again have many commuter rail connections as well as bus and subway and trolley line services that serve the Boston metro area. Some of the other smaller northeast line stations also connect with local commuter rail or bus services. That is one of the reasons the northeast line is so busy. You can get to most areas without a car besides the frequent rail service.

How about the bus using the EZ pass lanes on the Beltway in Virginia to speed up service.

I hadn't realized that it was open. I will have to give it at least one round-trip ride before I move. A pity it took so long to get the Silver Line. Metro was planned to go to Dulles Airport back when the airport was built back in the early 1960s but....nothing happens quickly with beauracracies.

"Bethesda to Tysons" sounds like something a gamer does when going to microwave frozen chicken. Also, I really like that orange livery!

in my opinion the station isnt completely useless. it might seem like it is but people need to think long term. the area will naturally grow, so its better for wmata to think ahead and prepare for future development

I think RideOn should take over this route. Most of the stops the 798 makes serve Montgomery County and RideOn serves areas in Washington DC anyways

The bus is a great route - directly connecting these large population/employment centers. But yeah, it needs its own lane on the beltway to reach its real potential, the same way that NJ/NY has the XBL through the Lincoln tunnel. Also why wouldn’t it go to the Bethesda metro station? That’d be such an obvious move for say someone commuting from Rockville to Tysons, or someone going from Tysons to Medical Center.

The route you mentioned at 1:51 actually DOES briefly enter the District of Columbia! If you look REAL close on the map, on that bridge by Jones Point Park, a small slither of that bridge is in DC! But yes, it's now one of two that go between Virginia and Maryland without stopping somewhere in DC!

I hope this improves and succeeds. The success or failure of this route could justify extending or not extending the Purpe Line in the future. Assuming the idea of extending the Purple is taken seriously 😅 which is a big ask

When the express lanes are built on American Legion and into MD, this might be an option, though, I suspect it will not garner the ridership that would justify keeping it for more than a few years.

Great review! Glad your travel time was a little shorter than mine

There is a joke that contrary to popular belief, an ostrich can fly---all it needs is a running start, a ramp, some booster rockets, and the body of a completely different bird. For this bus line to succeed, it just needs a different schedule, better highways, and to be a different bus line.

Weird that they have this but nothing from Alexandria (city or Fairfax County) to Tysons, a route that could actually leverage HOV lanes. AFAIK, the 494/495 are the only bus routes that actually use them.

3:59 32 * $6.75 = $216, not $212

some of us not too crazy about all the construction in downtown with the purple line

Hopefully they don’t neglect this. This route can work if improved and maybe it’ll convince more people to invest in the Beltway Line 😅(Purple or Monorail).

Haven’t gotten a chance to ride the 798 yet. It’d be fun to race someone riding the Metro just to see which is faster (because it’s all up to traffic). Unfortunately the next bridge from VA to MD towards the west is the Point of Rocks Bridge, carrying U.S. 15, so the Beltway is really the only decent option for Tysons-Bethesda. A Loudoun County Transit bus from Ashburn/Leesburg/Lucketts to Point of Rocks that was timed with a MARC train would be interesting though, if we somehow wanted more cross-Potomac bus routes.

Sweet!

I just find it hilarious that the Fairfax Connector route between Tysons and Bethesda has to use the beltway, which renders the whole purpose useless, unless someone is willing to wait in traffic.

As someone who is into military history this station came with alot of convenience for when i go down there to DC. Just hop on the train at Reagan and boom your right there. That entire area is historical

Right after this station opened, I was visiting in Leesburg and wanted to go to Silver Spring, MD, where I lived from 1978-1986, to see the relatively new public library there. (It had actually opened 7 years earlier, but this was my first opportunity to see it.) I took the Metro from Ashburn (after driving about 10 miles on a toll road) to Metro Center and then switched to the Red Line. I noticed when we got to Rosslyn, it was an hour after we left Ashburn. When I used to lived in Silver Spring, I commuted from there to Rosslyn in the early days of Metro, so this gave me an idea of just how far out Ashburn is.

Check out the new Moynihan Hall in New York Penn Station - I’ve heard great things!

Aqui en hora punta pasa un metro cada minuto, por eso no da tiempo a una aglomeracion muy grande, aunque aqui el metro parece mas luminoso y reluciente, aunque pasear esta bien y por el centro puede haber demasiada gente, th-cam.com/video/n3zQPyttsvQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6Mj2CMMBKYIZOvc0&t=1

As a West Virginia resident, I love this station

OMG look at all of the space surrounding the station. Convert it to affordable housing and I'll live there and ride the train into DV for work

One of the unusual features of the Silver line is that the vehicle maintenance facility is about 1/2 mile from the main line. Most LRT/Metro train yards are either built on the main line or along an extension after the last station (e.g.,, Los Angeles Line B/D, that stores train south of Union Station), but not the Silver line.

I thought Shady Grove station on the Red Line was close to West Virginia years ago!

Nice vid! Hopefully they start running faster trains out there

There's a <1mi but fairly scary bikeride between the station and the w-od trail network. The gap is so small and would be so easy to fix with a wider sidewalks and replacing the current walk phases in intersections with all-direction no-car walk phases

Ashburn is nothing... The Washington and Old Dominion ran to Bluemont, VA, which was at the foot of the Blue Ridge. The Ashburn station is only marginally closer to Leesburg, VA as the MARC station at Point of Rocks, MD, with tolls. Its main benefit is number of trains.

You never actually stated or showed that the station was closer to WV than to DC.

Frustrating that there's already more mixed use development by that station than by Vienna/Fairfax, which is still mostly a sea of parking almost 40 years on, even after some recent housing construction. The Ashburn station is weird. It almost feels like an afterthought. Like, they didn't want trains waiting and turning around at the airport, so they just went a little bit further out and made the Ashburn station. Still, a lot of potential for growth. Wish the Silver Line had been out there when I lived in Herndon 17 years ago, that's for sure. But the local NYMBYs were still fighting it tooth and nail at the time. I kinda figured Ashburn wouldn't get much use on account of the wannabe aristocrats not wanting to mix with the poors. But I also know there are some normal folks out there who still want/need public transit, so I'm glad it's there.

0:07 at least the crows are using the station!

50 minutes from DC to Ashburn during rush hour? Sure, if you're willing to pay $30+ in tolls one-way. If you're not a billionaire who can afford that kind of stuff, you're looking at closer to 70 minutes, which is not that much faster than Metro tbh.

I was living in Maryland at the time when the Bush II administration kiboshed the Silver Line. To resurrect the project the Northern Virginia business community did two things: 1. They got rid of the tunnels. 2. They gave the platforms only *limited* shelter from the elements.

A station 26 miles out could benefit from some express services to get into the city faster, but WMATA has never built the quad tracks such service would require. Stop at the terminus, Dulles, and maybe one or two more stations before you get to the Silver / Orange merge at East Falls Church. The airport, in particular, would benefit from a faster connection to city center.

I know the trains say "wily," but it's pronounced "wheelie"

I think Ashburn deserves an extra point or two for being proof that there is at least one American metro area willing to do the forward-thinking thing and build a metro station in the middle of an empty field! For too long, other countries have beaten the US at building transit to the middle of nowhere, but now we have our own train to a cornfield! But seriously, building mass transit in a built-up area is expensive, and up-zoning single-family areas is contentious and often unpopular with the people who already live there. It’s much easier and cheaper to build the transit in an empty field. That way, the transit is cheap and you can just build the dense, walkable, transit-oriented development from the beginning, instead of trying to fight the NIMBYs to retrofit it later. Doing that is actually a very forward-thinking move that will help Ashburn develop into a small city in its own right instead of just more suburban sprawl.

I had no idea that Tysons had the first Apple Store!

Please check your pronunciation of "Whiele". Thanks.

I feel like a quick fix (and way to make money) to the empty parking garages for Metro would be to offer some long-term parking options for Dulles that include your transit fare in the parking price. This would likely require paper fare cards again, but it could be doable.