🚀 go-pugleaf

Please forward this widely, especially to friends living
in the Dulles Corridor & working in Tysons Corner, and
Hallcrest and Colshire area residents!

The Dulles Transit Task Force has, 
in the past several months, 
        **ELIMINATED the Tysons Loop** (Option T2)

from its "Intermediate Screening Process", in the face of the 
vast majority of comments expressed at public meetings at the 
beginning of this year!!

Instead, as replacement which would supposedly "serve" the exact same 
number of people, it is advancing "OPTION T4" -- a DOUBLE-POISON PILL 
AMENDMENT to the loop option which would cut off the connecting segments 
of the loop, isolating each side from the other. By doing so, 
it also would:

** NOT allow Metrorail commuters to Tysons Corner to return home
   without changing trains!

** REQUIRE road-spanning, DOUBLE-PLATFORM "pocket track stations"
   as wide as the West Falls Church station at Tysons East and West,
   throwing sections of Routes 7 and 123 into perpetual twighlight!

Why? Because the reason the Tysons loop was created in the FIRST place,
was to MINIMIZE the visual impact of an elevated line through Tysons -- 
by single-tracking most of it -- while MAXIMIZING ridership potential -- 
by doubling the number of station locations!

What Option T4 does, is to ELIMINATE the brief connections that would allow 
trains to LOOP between Westpark Drive and Tysons Center/Pike 7 Plaza--
and replace them with elevated stations twice as wide on the outskirts!

As a result, the so-called "loop" would become a single line with 
a bifurcated track, running through different stations depending on
which direction you were coming from, with every other train ending
at Tysons East or West to allow commuters to transfer back home!

By removing the ability of trains and their riders to loop back in 
the direction they came -- to have rush-hour trains terminate in a 
loop from both directions -- ALL FOUR single track stations serving 
the CORE of Tysons Corner would be rendered virutally unusable! 

Under Option T4, ALL commuters to the core of Tysons Corner would have to 
go one or two stops in the wrong direction, switch platforms, and change 
trains to get back home on the Metro.

To "remedy" this fact, the poison-pill T4 would have additional rush-hour 
trains that terminate, NOT in a loop serving all of Tysons Corner, but at 
a THIRD track at Tysons East and West stations -- akin to the one 
at West Falls Church -- widening these elevated stations to cover almost 
the ENTIRE roadway and thrusting them into perpetual twilight. In every 
version of the Dulles rail plan, these two outlying stations are elevated, 
two-way stations. But in the absence of a loop, these ELEVATED stations 
would have to be TRIPLE-tracked!!

This Option T4 is a BLATANT strategy to protect the interests of a vocal 
minority of homeowners living off Westpark drive who chose to live in the
middle of the biggest highrise conglomeration in the area -- at the cost 
to tens of thousands of commuters who have to drive through Tysons traffic 
every day, and at the EXPENSE of residents in the Hallcrest Heights and 
Colshire communities (at Tysons East and West), who would have to live
with TRIPLE-tracked elevated stations overshadowing the entrance to their
neighborhood!

No fewer than THREE options remain for restricting Metro to the median of
Routes 7 and 123, with HALF as many stations and NO access to the interior 
of Tysons Corner. These options -- T1, T6, T9 -- ALSO require triple-tracking 
at Tysons East and West stations. Even the proposal to have a double-track 
elevated all the way, straight through the middle of Tysons Corner, with 
triple track elevated at both ends, remains on the books. NONE of these 
options have been eliminated. Why then has Option T2, a single track 
elevated loop with twice as many stations serving commuter destinations, 
been eliminated??

This will leave Virginians faced with a choice between three high-cost, 
low-ridership rail alignments, T1, T6 and T9, that DO NOT deviate from 
Route 123 to serve commuters to the thousands of offices along Westpark Drive, 
and a TERMINALLY HOBBLED TYSONS "LOOP" proposal (that does not loop),
Option T4, as the sole alternative.

We might as well split downtown D.C. Metro service, and have trains
south of the Mall go only east, and trains to the north go only west!

Again, the ONLY way to avoid triple-tracking the Tysons East and West
elevated stations is by allowing "turnback trains" to LOOP through the
middle of Tysons Corner. This is the ONLY way to minimize impacts to
residents living in the Colshire and Hallcrest communities, in much 
lower-density surounds.

If you care about being able to use mass transit to Tysons, or if you 
simply do not want to see TWO BILLION dollars go to waste on a Tysons 
rail line that is unusable,

Please E-MAIL dullestransit@aol.com and Congressman Wolf and tell them
why you think they should RESTORE OPTION T2 and provide SENSIBLE 
transit in Tysons Corner.

For more details read Pages 46 and 49 in the "Intermediate Evaluations" 
of the "Final Alternatives Analysis Report" PDF file, available at

http://dullestransit.com/reports.cfm

Jump to the END of this pdf file to view the public comments 
on these proposals!

-Brian Robinson