“Transforming Rail in Virginia”

Shortline614 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 7:44 pm I know this is an older post but I have a question? What exact purpose would VRE shuttles between Alexandria and Union Station serve? I understand bringing MARC to Alexandria but to me these shuttles seem like a near direct duplication of existing Metro services. The only real benefit I see is eliminating a single Metro transfer from the blue to red lines for Union Station passengers.

Additional service between ALX and WAS. They would serve Crystal City and L'Efant Plaza.

Crystal City, you may know, is host to one of Amazon's east coast HQ's.

VRE mostly operates in rush-hour, rush-direction only. But MARC's Penn Line runs all day in both directions.

So having a connection between MARC's end in WAS plus being faster overall (because you skip going red to yellow via a elevator/escalator and having to wait on two subway trains constantly stopping) is a net win for folks having to come into Amazon's HQ.

Of course, I'm for that (although for other reasons).