This past Sunday I checked out Metro's new Silver Line Phase One that runs from Largo Town Center in Maryland, through The District, into Arlington along the Orange Line route where it splits off between East Falls Church and West Falls Church and follows the Dulles Access-Toll Road until it elevates and makes its way towards the Tysons area where there are four new stations -- McLean, Tysons Corner, Greensboro and Spring Hill. Then the Silver Line rolls down to ground level and back to the median of the Dulles Access-Toll Road as it travels to its final destination -- Wiehle-Reston East.
Phase Two will eventually extend past Dulles International Airport when completed in a few years, but the weekend was about celebrating the biggest transportation project in the country and the biggest expansion since Metro's inception in 1976.
I boarded at Metro Center and started taking video just before the junction where the Orange Line trains go straight to West Falls Church station and beyond and the Silver Line trains head towards Tysons. This is really a game changer for Tysons and the entire region. Suddenly thousands of jobs are Metro accessible as are the popular Tysons I and II shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, bars, movie theaters and more in the Tysons area. There are big plans for Tysons in terms of building more residential and office buildings near the Metro stations and also making Tysons more livable with better bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure.
The stations are magnificent. I have been on modern mass transit systems in Europe and the new Metro stations rival any of them. They are modern, light, airy, futuristic -- a massive departure from the existing system which has become depressingly dirty, dark, dank and outdated over the years.
Besides the impressive station architecture, there are public restrooms that are visible and easily accessible to passengers -- something the rest of the Metro system is required to provide but doesn't do a good job of informing customers that there are restrooms in the stations because they are often hidden and in disrepair.
Also, it was refreshing to ride on actual working escalators and not have to deal with constant escalator malfunctions and repairs like the rest of the Metro system.
I highly recommend hopping on board the Silver Line and seeing the future of Metro for yourself. Metro is boldly moving forward into a 21st century transit system for the nation's capital and the Silver Line is leading the way!
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