Silver Line Dulles WMATA Metrorail progress/pictures

"Chris Brown"
Any chance Phase II will be completed ahead of schedule because of the warm winter?

I'm not going to speculate as anything could happen in the next 36 + months.

Edit: Seems I won the privilege of having the first post on the 100th page of this thread.

Chris Brown wrote:Any chance Phase II will be completed ahead of schedule because of the warm winter?

Maybe I am being cynical, but the way I would put it is that the chances of further delays were slightly reduced because of the warm winter. They might have added 1 week per year to the schedule for lost time due to snowstorms, but I can't see a whole lot more than that.

The last I saw was an estimated opening date of late in 2019, which some people see as really meaning early 2020.

"JackRussell"
The last I saw was an estimated opening date of late in 2019, which some people see as really meaning early 2020.

The Washington Post reported that MWAA said that the Phase II opening would be pushed into 2020 just under 2 years ago:

Silver Line phase 2: now arriving in 2020
Lori Aratani
04 30 2015
washingtonpost.com

Funny thing, I don't recall when I learned when that it would be pushed into 2020. Hell I have may seen the story before and forgot when it was reported.

Sand Box John wrote: Funny thing, I don't recall when I learned when that it would be pushed into 2020. Hell I have may seen the story before and forgot when it was reported.

That seems like sloppy reporting and/or headline writing. From the article you linked:

News that rail project’s second phase is 13 months behind schedule wasn’t unexpected. Officials close to the project had hinted that it wouldn’t make the July 2018 completion date listed in the contract. The question however, was how long the delay would be.

Adding 13 months to the contract completion date gets you to August 2019, but that's the projected date that they would turn it over to Metro. Metro would do their own testing before opening up for revenue service, and I don't know how long that is projected to take.

Edit: If you look at this presentation from just under 2 years ago:

https://www.loudoun.gov/DocumentCenter/View/114753" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They show an "Operational Readiness Date" of late 2019.

JackRussell wrote:They show an "Operational Readiness Date" of late 2019.

"Operational readiness" doesn't mean that the line will be open.

Wasn't there several months between "operational readiness" and service launch on phase one?

justalurker66 wrote:

JackRussell wrote:They show an "Operational Readiness Date" of late 2019.

"Operational readiness" doesn't mean that the line will be open.

Wasn't there several months between "operational readiness" and service launch on phase one?

Correct. For phase 1, substantial completion was achieved on 4/9/2014. ORD was achieved on 5/27/2014, and revenue service began on 7/26/2014.

My guess is that it won't be until the start of 2019 that we will get an idea of when some of these dates might occur for phase 2.

"justalurker66"
Wasn't there several months between "operational readiness" and service launch on phase one?

Operational readiness typically takes place between 6 to 10 weeks before opening. WMATA always begins revenue operations 2 week of before opening a segment.

I think the lessons learned from the launch of Phase I will help in cutting down the lag between completion and passenger revenue service. We may just have this open around the holidays 2019 (Nov/Dec.) That would certainly be welcomed by people flying into/out of Dulles, as well as retailers in Tysons Corner looking to lure shoppers from western burbs.

"JDC"
I think the lessons learned from the launch of Phase I will help in cutting down the lag between completion and passenger revenue service.

Phase I was a sierra foxtrot because MWAA did not follow the book that WMATA wrote over the previous 35 years. Use that book and thing should go reasonably smoothly.

This morning there was a meeting of the BOD of MWAA, and there was a status powerpoint posted:

http://www.mwaa.com/sites/default/files ... update.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Other misc materials here:
http://www.mwaa.com/about/april-19-2017 ... ernational" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.mwaa.com/sites/default/files ... 8_2017.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There are descriptions of what is done and what is upcoming. Some of what they are doing isn't new to us, but if nothing else the pictures are good, and we get a better idea of the %age completion of various tasks.

Innovation station really is far along. What also struck me, and what I had forgotten, is how close together these stations are. I guess that makes sense if you're trying to maximize the area's density like Tysons, but for such a rural area it seems a bit much. I think Loudoun Gateway likely could have been axed if this was being designed again and budget constraints were different.

JDC wrote:I think Loudoun Gateway likely could have been axed if this was being designed again and budget constraints were different.

It is a decent place for 2750 parking slots (750 existing). Kill that station and one would end up building the parking somewhere else (perhaps at 3000 slot Ashburn or 2000 slot Innovation Center).

quote="
Innovation station really is far along. What also struck me, and what I had forgotten, is how close together these stations are. I guess that makes sense if you're trying to maximize the area's density like Tysons, but for such a rural area it seems a bit much. I think Loudoun Gateway likely could have been axed if this was being designed again and budget constraints were different.

There will be no commuter parking at the airport unless one want the pay the airport rate to park there. It should also be noted that there will be no parking at Reston Town Center, hence the reason why Boston Properties is instituting pay parking. Innovation is a hell of a long way from Ashburn and the parking is not directly accessible from the Dulles Toll Road.

"justalurker66" » Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:35 pm

It is a decent place for 2750 parking slots (750 existing). Kill that station and one would end up building the parking somewhere else (perhaps at 3000 slot Ashburn or 2000 slot Innovation Center).

I will also add that parking at Loudoun Gateway is more easily accessed from the Dulles Greenway then the parking at Ashburn.

For what it is worth, the tower crane at Herndon was disassembled and removed over the weekend.

The steel roof girders are now being installed at Reston. The heavy crane that was assembling the platform is now gone.

Google earth imagery has been updated, but the new pictures are clearly at least 6 months months old. In Google Earth, it isn't showing me the date of the images.

Google is doing some weird stuff to get a 3D effect - the tower crane at the airport looks like it jumps out at you, but their image processing isn't perfect. It looks like the crane moved along the way, as you can see the boom in 2 different positions.