Silver Line opening day
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New bike room customers with
Charlie Strunk, county bike coordinator |
Today was the long awaited debut of Silver Line service to Reston via Tysons. It was also the official opening of the
Wiehle-Reston East bike room. We live about a mile from the Wiehle station so we headed over to try to catch a ride on the first train. We parked in the bike room and noticed that most cyclists had parked at the free indoor bike parking located just outside the bike room.
At around 11:30 a.m. the ribbon was cut at the south entrance to Wiehle station. Participants included US Department of Transportation Secretary Foxx, Virginia Governor McAuliffe, Congressmen Connolly and Moran, and several Virginia and Fairfax elected officials.
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| Cutting the ribbon at Wiehle-Reston East |
The first train pulled out of Wiehle station shortly after noon. The cars were packed so it took a while to close the doors ("Please stand back to allow the doors to close.") Most of the luminaries exited at the Tysons Corner station. We rode to East Falls Church, then crossed the platform with about half the other passengers to catch the return train to Wiehle-Reston East.
We exited again at Tysons Corner to check out the new Plaza at Tysons Corner Center (see
construction camera). The direct connection from Tysons Corner station to the Plaza is not completed so we followed a circuitous route to street level then through Lord & Taylor. There were no bikes parked at the station racks but we expect them to get more use during the week.
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| Tysons Corner station |
After lunch in Tysons we returned to Reston to retrieve our bikes from the bike room. The free parking was nearly full and there were a few bikes parked in the bike room.
We saw several passengers with bicycles at the Tysons and Reston stations. Metro is a great way to extend your cycling opportunities in the metro DC area.
Today was a major milestone for multimodal transportation in Fairfax County. It will be interesting to watch how travel patterns change over the next several years. We expect many more people in Fairfax to add Metro and biking to their transportation options.
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| First train riders entering Wiehle-Reston East |
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| Passing under Wiehle Ave |
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| Tysons Corner station bike racks |
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| Bird sculpture on The Plaza at Tysons Corner Center |
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| Metro entrepreneur |
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| Bikes at the Wiehle station |
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| Free parking outside Wiehle bike room |
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Bike coordinator Charlie Strunk and
Bruce Wright of FABB inside Wiehle bike room |
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| Bruce and Kerie in Wiehle bike room |
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| Bike parking on south side of Wiehle station |
Labels: dulles metrorail, Tysons, wiehle station bike room, wiehle-reston east
posted by Bruce Wright at 5:02 PM permalink
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