Quote:
Originally Posted by novawolverine
The main areas for densification in the long-term for Arlington near or around I-66 would be in the areas where the Orange Line already exists, like East Falls Church. Lee Highway and Sprout Run would be the only no-brainer place, but that might be enough. Lee Highway from Rosslyn through Fairfax has numerous places for cluster-style development/mixed-use density.
I think what would be great for Arlington, and Fairfax, as far as densifying is concerned is to get some mass-transit on Columbia Pike. The streetcar will be nice, but at some point, it would be great to have something a bit more heavier-duty to go along the Pike from the Pentagon to Rt. 7 with maybe even some longer-term plan to extend to Annandale and Spingfield/Burke. I've heard that the Pentagon station had some stub or something in case there was an expansion for metro on Columbia Pike. I'd love for Shirlington to have Metro, but I think some sort of heavy mass transit along Rt. 7 from Alexandria through Falls Church and Tysons at least would make the most sense.
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There are a pair of stub tunnels at or near the Pentagon station that were built for future connection to a Metro line under Columbia Pike. Your idea of running a line on a top be determined route through Arlington between the Pentagon station and East Falls Church to the Silver Line is an interesting one, but I don't it has been seriously considered. Does not show up in the various alternatives shown in the viewgraph presentations at the DC Metro Technical Advisory group
webpage. That new route would then dump more traffic onto the busy Yellow and Green lines - unless it woudl then cut to a new N-S line in DC running further west to Union Station.
Among the capacity chokepoints in the DC Metro system that any major new line has to address in the core are Union Station which is the busiest station in the Metro system and the Orange-Blue crunch from Rosslyn through the city. So the conceptual looks at the line - be it re-routed Silver or Blue lines - through Georgetown to M St to Union Station as among the studied alternatives.