Governor Tim Kaine Blogs on Metro

As some of you may know, we have some serious traffic challenges in Northern Virginia. While there are a lot of causes that are not so good (historically, we haven’t done a great job coordinating land use and transportation planning, which is something we’ve made huge strides in over the last two years), it is also partly an outgrowth of a strong economy. Over the last two decades, Northern Virginia has grown, and the economic engine that helps drive our state (and, in fact, the nation’s capital) has expanded. With that expansion has come more traffic congestion.

Today, working together with Secretary Mary Peters, the folks at DOT, and FTA Administrator Jim Simpson, we took a major step towards offering more transportation choices to our citizens and visitors to our nation's capital with the first phase of the Dulles Rail Extension moving into the Final Design Approval stage.

The Dulles Rail project has been talked about for more than two decades and planned for more than ten years. But it took an innovative partnership between the federal government, the state, local governments, the business community and other stakeholders to move it to the Final Design Approval stage.  Secretary Peters and her staff saw the value of the project and have worked closely with me and my team to address the challenges it faced.  I believe our work will serve as a model of how complex transportation projects must be developed and evaluated in the future.

I want to thank the Secretary for her dedication, tenacity, and flexibility. I also want to thank Senators Warner and Webb and Congressmen Wolf, Davis, and Moran for their hard work on this project. It wouldn’t be where it is today without their support.

We still have a long way to go, but our mutual commitment to getting this project done – and done right – will leave a positive, lasting transportation legacy for our nation’s capital. I look forward to our continued partnership and to the success of rail through Tysons Corner.

- Governor Tim Kaine

Comments

[Al Bartraw]

I was raised near Quantico and there has been a travel issue as far back as I can remember. I remember when, once you made it past Dale City, you were in the clear. I haven't lived there since the late 80s. I visited there recently and saw that traffic now flows all the way to Fredericksburg. Unbelievable!!! I thought the addition of the VRE would help. My family and I took the train from Manassas while we were there and I found it much more desirable than dreading the deadlocked traffic to get into DC. I hope that this gasoline issue we are having make people more open to using the VRE or Metro to commute in and out of town. Keep up the good work Governor.

[HP Bryce]

I always hated when I would have to do training in D.C. What a traffic nightmare.