In a First, Buses to Connect Loudoun and Tysons

That’s because Loudoun County officials plan to use money earmarked for the massive Dulles Rail project to launch a new express bus service between Loudoun and Fairfax County’s busiest job center.

“We had been asked to provide this before, but the money was not available until now,” said Nancy Gourley, transit chief in the county’s Office of Transportation Services.

When it begins next year, Gourley said the temporary service will be a first for the county’s popular transit system, which now moves commuters between Loudoun and stops at the West Falls Church Metro station, Washington, D.C., and Arlington.

According to county documents, the service will begin next September and run through the end of 2013, when the first phase of the Metro project, which will take rail from Falls Church to Reston, is expected to wrap up. Phase II will extend rail from Reston to Loudoun, and is scheduled for completion about three years later.

The service is being created to help remove cars from roads that run through Tysons Corner while construction of rail is under way. Once work on Phase I is finished, the express service will likely transition to taking commuters to the new Wiehle Avenue Metro station in Reston.

"We are making some big changes to Route 7," said Marcia McAllister, a spokeswoman for the rail project, adding that construction will ramp up considerably in 2010. One major change commuters heading east through Tysons via Route 7 will soon see is the phasing out of several left-hand turns. "The more cars will take off the roads in Tysons the better," McAllister added.

When gas spiked to $4 a gallon in mid-2008, use of Loudoun’s fleet of nearly 40 commuter buses soared. Some months last year, ridership jumped as much as 25 percent from the year before. And so far in 2009, according to Gourley, ridership is up another 4 percent for the year.

“We did not lose any riders since the gas prices went back down,” she said.

In response to the influx, the county recently started a new shuttle service between Ashburn and Lansdowne and the West Falls Church Metro station. Also, in July, supervisors decided to beef up the county’s bus fleet by approving the purchase of seven additional motor coaches, four of which will be used for the Tysons Corner route.

Service to Tysons will cost the county nothing. The nearly $5 million it will take to operate the service—including money to buy the buses—will come from $25 million the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is heading up the rail project, has budgeted to manage traffic during rush hours while the project progresses.

During the workweek, the buses, which will each hold about 70 passengers, will make seven morning and afternoon runs on about 30-intervals between park and ride lots in Leesburg and Broadlands and various stops in Tysons Corner. The fare will be $3 each way, and buses will travel predominately on the Dulles Toll Road.

Public meetings will take place early next year to get riders’ feedback on where exactly the buses should stop in Tysons, Gourley said.

Loudoun supervisors were scheduled to agree to accept the rail money for the bus service at their Nov. 4 meeting. The item was part of the meeting’s consent agenda, meaning supervisors decided beforehand to endorse the measure.

Besides the new Loudoun service, McAllister said Fairfax County will soon launch a new mid-day shuttle service in Tysons that will take workers to and from the area's major malls during lunch hours.

See www.loudoun.gov/transportation to learn more.