Pedestrian Tunnel in Alexandria between VRE & King St Metro

Jersey_Mike wrote:Could some VRE trains terminating at an expanded Alexandria station be a solution? With better Metro connections and perhaps some sort of transfer included fare it might be a better option than nothing.

In all such cases, the goal is to serve more passengers while delaying at long as possible the big bucks expansion of the Long Bridge (the old "organization before electronics before concrete" rule). I like how you think. Turning at ALX is probably cheapest and worth a try. Intermediate between the frustration of turning back at ALX and the big bucks for a new Potomac span would be to pay for a siding at Crystal City and a canopied transfer to the Metro there.

One way to do it, if you could run the trains to schedule, would be to have zones service with an outer zone train making local stops and then running express paired with an inner zone train that starts at an intermediate point and then makes local stops. At Alexandria the inner zone local would terminate and passengers could either hit the Metro or wait on the platform to transfer to the outer zone trains. This setup shifts any extra burden to those that already have the shorter travel times and limits congestion to the last few minutes of the run for through riders.

If there was room for a platform and a restored 4th track, maybe. There is too much traffic in the rush hours to allow for changing ends in the station on #2 and #3. #1 is useless with the fence (even though I have used it on 321 in the AM, but I pick up 3 people). Now....for Manassas trains....I've always said that it could be beneficial to restore NS' dead-end leads to what was the old Duke St. yard....they still go for quite a ways, and could be used for VRE storage. If NS would play ball some Manassas trains could come up the North Passenger track (a normal move for me in the morning SB, but if there are locals working Van Dorn, i'm forced to the Horn down to CR Tower), onto a restored 4th track at AF, terminate in the station, shove back behind AF and go in the old leads. Here is the question...how many people would want it? ALX isn't really a heavy stop compared to Crystal City (or L'enfant). People aren't going to want to transfer. Crystal City is an option...and a good one. I think that 4th track will need to be extended up there for that to happen.

VRE is begining the design this summer and hopes to start construction in the fall of 2014
See pg. 17 of the May CEO Report
http://www.vre.org/about/Ops_board_item ... 202013.pdf