RCA Resolution on Dulles Rail Stations
Adopted February 26, 2001

  • Whereas, the Reston Citizens Association (RCA) has previously resolved to support the Dulles rail transit project with various features that would make it a "community-friendly" transit system; and
  • Whereas, the Dulles Corridor Rapid Transit Project has responded to the RCA resolution, and similar resolutions adopted by the Reston Association and the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, by formally committing itself to a benefit-cost evaluation of the option of providing direct pedestrian access to all four quadrants of the Reston rail stations; and
  • Whereas, all parties understand that the cost of moving the station platforms under the bridges at the Dulles Toll Road interchanges is likely to be several million dollars if conventional Metro standards are to be adhered to;

Now therefore, RCA recommends that the Project, and other interested parties, give serious consideration to station designs for the two main Reston stations that incorporate the following:

1. Move the platforms closer to the bridges.

2. Build safe and attractive pedestrian access connections on both sides of the bridges and from there to, and across, the intersections to the north and south.

3. Add bus bays on both sides of the bridges with protected areas for pedestrians and direct access to the stations.

4. Build mezzanines under the bridges with escalators to move people down from both sides of the bridges.

5. Extend the mezzanines westward sufficiently to access the platforms by escalator.

6. Narrow the eastern end of the station platforms as much as practical to shorten the required walking distances from the bridges to the platforms.

7. Depress the rail station platforms and tracks sufficiently to allow vertical clearance for the two levels below the bridges -- i.e., the mezzanine and platform levels.

We believe that the combination of these conceptual design features will effectively control costs while providing maximum pedestrian, bicycle, and bus access for all Reston neighborhoods, and for businesses and services in the Dulles corridor.

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