Suburban Virginia's Silver Line Metrorail after 10 years

There's a piece in GGW, "How the Silver Line has shaped transit-oriented development in Northern Virginia," about the impact of the Silver Line on transit oriented development in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties.

The author points out development has occurred in Tysons and Reston, but less so in other areas.  

That shouldn't be surprising.  The Silver Line is very much a polycentric extension of the system, and the stations are very spread out.  

Blots of development along the line are unlikely because residents don't want to live in pods, and the distance to the core is so significant--for example the Loudoun Gateway station is about 30 miles from DC.

Plus, the supra block nature of suburban development--massive sites, massive buildings--makes the walkability element of a benefit from transit development somewhat remote.

Herndon station.

It reminds me of my 2011 piece, making the point that developers wanted that transit line in order to keep their properties relevant in the 21st century development and land use paradigm. 

And that like with DC proper, it would take 20-40 years to fully reap the impact, which Bisnow didn't take into consideration ("Much Was Planned, But Little Is Built As Final Piece Of Metro's Silver Line Approaches Its Debut").  

-- "Short term vs. long term thinking: transit, the Washington Examiner, Fairfax/Loudoun Counties vs. DC"

Related posts over the years include:

-- "Silver line reshaping commercial office market in Fairfax County," 2015
-- "Tysons (Corner) 10 Years after the plan to make it more walkable: the necessity of implementation mechanisms," 2020
-- "Brief follow up to intra-district transit proposal for Tysons: Toyama City Compact City initiative (Japan)," 2020
-- "A thought about an intra-district transit network for Tysons," 2020

And ideally some lessons:

-- "Metro sees the opportunity to continue the Silver Line into DC (the former separated blue line proposal)," 2011
-- "Tysons, White Flint and the continued "maturation" of the suburbs," 2013
-- "Ultimately, WMATA blue line riders have been dissed by the State of Virginia, not WMATA...," 2013
-- "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," 2013
-- "Silver Line delays: maybe the real lesson is that contracting out construction to the private sector doesn't always work so well," 2014
-- "The Silver Line WMATA story that WJLA-TV missed," 2014
-- "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?," 2017
-- "To and from origin stations can be difficult: More on the Silver Line and intra-neighborhood transit (tertiary network)," 2022
-- "Transit oriented development station typology revisited," 2024

One where I was wrong, opining that not tunneling the Silver Line in the Tysons area was a big mistake.  

Now, I don't think it matters, given the scale of the super blocks there, above-ground transit isn't the issue.  

The size of the blocks and distance between stations is the issue.  That's the reason for the proposal of an above-ground tram..

-- "Blinking on urban design means you limit your chance for success," 2006