August 2025: Community Advisory Group for Fairfax Projects   8/19/2025

but in general these meetings will be quarterly and they will be virtual.

We do, however, hope to offer some site walks or tours based on the interests and needs of this group.

Thanks, Meredith.

Good afternoon again, everyone.

My name is Jeff Geltier.

I'm a 15-year resident of Fairfax County, and I serve as the Senior Director of Projects for Northern Virginia.

I oversee our projects and our partnerships along the Arlington, Alexandria, and Franconia corridors, as well as VPRA's ownership of the Manassas Line between Alexandria and Broad Run.

Before we speak specifically to the projects in the Francona corridor, I wanted to take a few minutes to provide some background on VPRA and VRE and show you what we're doing to expand and improve passenger rail service in Virginia.

VPRA was created in 2020 by the General Assembly.

We are a political subdivision of the Commonwealth.

And while my colleagues and I are state employees, our organization is not a department of the state government that reports directly to the governor.

Rather, we are governed by a 15-member board of directors that is chaired by the director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

VPRA is charged with promoting, sustaining, and expanding the availability of passenger rail in the Commonwealth, and we do that by a few things.

We manage state-supported intercity rail service through Amtrak, and we fund a portion of VRE's commuter rail service.

We design, we construct, finance, and maintain rail infrastructure, and we also acquire railroad real estate to secure passenger service.

Since our creation,

VPRA has acquired nearly 400 miles of railroad real estate across the Commonwealth.

One thing we do not do is operate the trains themselves.

We contract directly with Amtrak to provide Virginia State supported service.

And of course, we partner with VRE as they operate the commuter rail service here in Northern Virginia.

And we also partner with the two major freight railroads in the state, CSX and Norfolk Southern, to run our services on their territories.

You go to the next slide.

So this is what the Virginia passenger rail network looks like today.

It's important to know that under the current federal regulations that govern passenger rail,

Amtrak owns and operates the Northeast Corridor that we all know from DC to Boston, and they operate long distance intercity service across the country on freight rail lines.

And you see some of those long distance lines in light blue here on the map.

But for additional service, states have to sponsor what's called State Supported Service, and that's where VPRA comes in.

We currently sponsor eight daily round trips that originate either in Roanoke, Richmond Main Street Station, Newport News, and Norfolk.

and those routes continue through Washington Union Station to either New York or Boston.

We also have an active project that will extend our state-supported Roanoke route further west and south into Christiansburg.

And though it's a little harder to see on the map, just given the scale, we also have 16 daily VRE round trips, eight along the Fredericksburg line to Spotsylvania, and then eight along the Massachusetts line to Broad Run.

Next slide.

So when we say at VPRA that we promote, sustain, and expand passenger rail in the Commonwealth, these are the benefits that we're targeting.

We want to increase the capacity of the existing rail network in the state.

We would love to add more state-supported trains on the existing routes, but we're currently maxed out because of multiple bottlenecks in the existing system.

The top two are right here in our region, the Long Bridge across the Potomac River and the Franconia Corridor that we're going to talk about today.

Second, we want to improve the quality of our service.

A network that's currently running at 98% of capacity is very sensitive to even the smallest disruptions, whether it's

freight rail interference or emergencies or weather delays and things like that.

So while the new capacity provides more frequent service, it also is going to provide in the long run, it's going to improve our on-time performance, the speed of the routes and overall the safety of the corridor.

And then finally, we want to provide more choices for transportation.

That includes better options to take the train rather than having to drive across the state,

And it also allows for additional services such as night and weekend services for VRE.

Next slide.

and we get there through expanding our program or expanding our network through a program that we call Transforming Rail in Virginia, or TRV.

VPRA is currently working on 11 projects in the DC to Richmond rail corridor.

That corridor is known as the RFMP, which is a historic reference to the original railroad, the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad, but the majority of the funding and effort for the current iteration of TRV through these 11 projects

is focused on the projects north of the Occoquan River and into DC.

And when these projects are completed, we'll create capacity for two new Amtrak state supported round trips, three new VRE round trips, but it also provides capacity for three future Amtrak and two future VRE round trips.

So the work that we're doing is with that expansion goal and mindset.

Next slide.

And of course, we must introduce VRE, though I'm sure they need no introduction.

They're well known in our region.

It's a commuter rail system that's served Northern Virginia for more than 30 years.

As I mentioned earlier, it operates eight daily round trips on the Fredericksburg Line and eight daily round trips on the Manassas Line.

There are 19 stations in the system, including L'Enfant Station and Washington Union Station in the District of Columbia, and they average about 12,000 passengers per day.

And while VPRA and VRE are independent entities, we are very closely linked through funding, operations, and infrastructure agreements.

As you can see from the last few slides, VPRA's efforts in Northern Virginia, they provide mutual benefits for both the state supported intercity service expansion and VRE service expansion.

Next slide.

So with that table now set, let's talk about the projects in Fairfax County.

As I mentioned earlier, the existing two-track segment from Franconia to Lorton is one of the critical bottlenecks between DC and Richmond.

And we have multiple projects underway that you see here that are meant to relieve that bottleneck.

And I'm going to ask each of the project managers from VPRA and then later from DRE to give their overview of their respective projects, starting with Sarah Hoover and the Franconia to Lorton third track.

Next slide, please.

So as Jeff mentioned earlier, one of these bottleneck locations is the Franconia-Lorton area.

So the intention of this third track is to build a continuous third mainline between Alexandria and Lorton.

It would add six miles of track that would be able to be dedicated specifically to passenger rail to alleviate that congestion that you see.

Part of this construction would also include improvements to railroad bridges, specifically over Newington Road and Lorton Road, and also the construction of infrastructure to accommodate those additional third tracks, which would include retaining walls, culverts, drainage fixtures, etc.

Next slide.

So one of the locations that does get affected by this construction is the Franconia VRA station.

I'll let Jason discuss a little bit more in depth here a little bit later, but I do want to touch on what it will look like with that third track in place.

So as you can see in the before image, you have the two existing main lines with that pedestrian walkway that comes in from Berry Road.

The after, as you can see, shows that third track with the construction of retaining walls along that area and to ensure the continued accommodation of those accessing through the Berry Road cul-de-sac, we will be constructing that

Pedestrian tunnel that is being designed and constructed by the VRE station programs.

Next slide, please.

So as I touched on earlier, we do have four railroad bridge improvement projects that will be going on as part of this construction, specifically at Newington Road, Accotink Creek, Pohick Creek, and Lorton Road.

Really, you can define them into two different types of construction that will be happening in those four locations.

So at Newington Road, we will be removing and replacing the existing railroad bridge for the two main lines and then building an adjacent railroad bridge for that third main line.

You will see the similar construction happening at Pohick with that complete removal and replacement for the two main lines and the construction of a new bridge to accommodate that third track.

At Accutink and Lorton,

We're taking a different approach in which case we will be leaving the existing railroad bridges in place and constructing a new railroad bridge adjacent to it to accommodate the third track.

Next slide, please.

So these next two slides, we'll just touch on two different locations specifically that have roadways that will be affected.

We have the Newington Road.

Currently, as you all are, I'm sure are aware, it is that single lane access point

Some people know it as Newington Road Bridge, some people know it as Cinderbed Road, and it really just limits accessibility because it is that single lane.

The intention of the third track will do two things.

The bridge will have a wider footprint to accommodate that third track, but also it will have an increased span that will allow for additional road lanes to be built underneath of that track.

The one thing I will note as part of this construction is the final reconfiguration of Newington Road is not a part of the current third track project.

That is a project that will be held by VDOT.

Next slide.

So finally, we'll just touch on this new railroad bridge that is going into Lorton Road.

As you can see in the before image, we do have the two existing main lines on the existing railroad bridge.

The construction that will be happening here is the construction of an adjacent bridge next to these.

So you can see in that after image, there are additional piers that will be going into the roadway and that will be used to accommodate the third track.

So these are the major fixtures that you'll be seeing as part of the third track.

Good afternoon.

Again, I'm Stephen Barna, Project Manager for the Franconia Springfield Bypass Project.

This slide shows an aerial view of the Franconia Springfield Bypass, which is located within the third track corridor that Sarah just discussed.

The bypass starts just south of the Franconia and Metro stations and is a little short of two miles long.

The bypass is an unusual bridge structure.

You can see on the inset on the left.

It's very different for a railroad.

We've all driven over highway bypass bridge structures, particularly in the DC area, where we have all the numerous highway mixing balls around the Springfield

Interchange with 95 and 495 and up around the Pentagon.

Railroads are very different, as you can imagine.

The weight of the trains, passenger and freight, especially the locomotives, present specific design challenges.

The structures tend to be much heavier, stronger in design than a highway structure would be.

The Franconia-Springfield Bypass will eliminate the need for passenger and freight train movements through a number of interlockings and switches.

This will greatly increase the travel time and safety through the corridor.

It will allow the Amtrak passenger and the VRE commuter trains to move from the west side of the track corridor north of the bypass to the east side south of the bypass.

Those moves are required due to the station platform locations north and south of the bypass.

Next slide, please.

This slide shows renderings of the bypass structure.

It's a reinforced concrete structure with steel girders carrying both steel and concrete decks and the trains run on them.

The current rail configuration is for a single track.

but the structure is designed and will be built with provisions for future fourth track.

In the renderings, you can see a VRE commuter train crossing over the CSX mainline tracks, which are below the bypass bridge structure.

Without the bypass, you can picture the difficulties in maintaining both the freight and passenger train traffic on just the two mainline tracks through this heavily traveled corridor.

Next slide, please.

Thanks, Stephen.

So we're expecting each of these projects to kick off within the next approximately 12 months, maybe a little bit longer than that.

You see the anticipated start dates here on the slide.

The bypass will start later this month or possibly in September, early September.

The station improvements project is scheduled to kick off next summer, and then the third track will start just after that in the fall of 26.

I also want to note though that for projects of this size and scope, we usually have enabling and supporting projects that help set the stage for the main construction package.

And we do have a couple of these for Franconia.

First, there are multiple utilities that run either along the railroad corridor or across it.

Many of these utilities need to be relocated or replaced.

So those relocations are going to be done directly by the utility owners themselves starting this fall and you may hear from them or see them independent from us.

CSX will also be performing some track work starting this month at the far northern end of the Franconia corridor, the far north tip of the blue that you see, adjacent to Fleet Drive and Franconia Road.

This work is going to relocate a few of the crossovers that need to be moved to accommodate the bypass structure.

So this work is going to be done almost completely within the existing railroad right of way.

So we expect that it's going to look a lot more like track maintenance than new construction.

Next slide.

Now while railroad construction is generally less visible to the public than highway construction or say new buildings, there will be noticeable impacts to nearby residents and the traveling public and we want to be upfront about that.

First, you know, construction vehicles and equipment will be using public roads to access the railroad corridor and the project sites.

So in a few locations, some lane closures and detours may be necessary, not just for access, but to build those new bridges over the roadways, like Sarah mentioned, at Newington Road and Morton Road.

Though I would say for Newington and Morton, we don't expect to start the new traffic patterns and the construction of those structures until late 26, early 27.

We also expect that there's going to be gradually increasing truck traffic along the corridor and at the multiple project access points.

The two earliest access points that we plan to use are the Barry Road cul-de-sac and the Windsor Estates neighborhood,

and the existing CSX Access Road on the northwest side of the railroad bridge over Newington Road.

We have a few other access locations that are still in development that we'll be able to share at future CAG meetings.

There will also be multiple construction crews throughout the corridor working both day and night shifts, though we do expect that much of the work will be taking place during daytime hours for the first year or so.

We also expect that many construction employees will be transported to the site just because there's very little parking immediately adjacent to the railroad corridor.

And then for VRE service, we do expect that there are going to be some platform closures and some train schedule adjustments at the Franconia, Springfield, and Lorton stations to accommodate

Not just construction in Franconia, but throughout the region up in Alexandria and Long Bridge, whatnot.

Those changes are going to be communicated to passengers well in advance of their trips.

So make sure that that gets out through all different channels as well.

Amtrak does not serve those stations specifically, and we do not expect that the Franconia projects will negatively impact the Amtrak Auto Train Station in Morton.

Next slide.

So for other activities that folks may notice, we couldn't hear an excerpt from the mailer that we sent out a couple weeks ago.

I mentioned the increased truck traffic.

There's going to be some noise emanating from the track areas where construction is happening.

We are building an alternate set of tracks on each side of the bypass project.

These are known as shoe flies.

They're meant to move the active

on the

allow more work to be done and not as disruptive during the day.

And we want to do as much of the work as possible during daytime hours just given the disruption of night work.

And then those of you that are close by the railroad corridor are going to see a lot of earth moving and grading in the near term.

as well as a number of retaining walls in the corridor.

The first retaining walls that we expect to see are on the west side of the bypass footprint next to the Loydsdale State's neighborhoods.

Go to the next slide, please.

We just provided here a couple of details of the two access points I mentioned, Barry Road and Newington Road.

This is the access point for Barry.

You see the cul-de-sac at the bottom here.

It also shows some of the work that's planned in the area, including a new three barrel box culvert that we're going to be building along Long Branch.

This culvert is going to provide

New access road for the tracks that's going to go right over the culvert.

And it's also going to allow VRE to start placing the pedestrian tunnel for the Franklin and Springfield station that Jason's going to talk about in a few minutes here.

Go to the next slide to Newington.

And then this is the access point I mentioned earlier at Newington.

So in this image, to the right is north and left the south.

The access point is going to be on the kind of the Loydsdale Road side of Newington and the Railroad Corridor.

Our plan initially is to use kind of that purple shaded approach using the existing road, but we may expand it in the future depending on the needs of the contractor.

Okay, we'll go to my last slide here.

So this is just an overall schedule or a high level schedule.

To give you a rough idea of where we are today and where the bypass and third track are going to be in the next few years in the big picture, we are very close to completing our 100% design packages for both projects.

We're currently working on right-of-way acquisition for both projects and then kickoff construction as I mentioned earlier.

We expect both bypass and third track to be completed sometime early to mid-2029, and we will continue to update through future CAG meetings as that schedule adjusts.

Thanks, Jeff.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jason Bortz with VRE, Project Manager for the Franconia Springfield Station Improvements Project.

With this project, we're working in close coordination with all the third track project and the bypass project and looking forward to taking advantage of the overall corridor improvements that will bring to the station.

In order to make the most of those corridor improvements, we are extending both of the platforms on either side of the existing two tracks.

to ensure that we can open all train doors on all eight cars of an eight-car set, particularly on the west side that you can see on the right-hand side of the photo.

It's a rather short platform, so we can only open two or three doors out of eight, and that takes us a lot more time to board and de-board passengers.

So this will allow us to be more efficient and improve our boarding times.

While we're there extending those platforms, we're going to take the existing platforms and get them cleaned up, repaired, bring them into good condition.

That will mostly be concrete repairs, cleaning and painting all the steel, things of that nature.

We'll be replacing the glass window frames with a metal mesh

That has just more durability, particularly with the increased anticipated traffic over time and with the additional rail on the east side of the corridor, which would be the left side of this picture.

We want to make sure that we get everything into it as good and durable of a state as we can for the foreseeable future.

Off the south side,

Straight through this photo off the far end, and you'll be able to see it better on the next slide, is the new pedestrian underpass.

And that will head down towards the Barry Road cul-de-sac to maintain access from the cul-de-sac.

So for anybody who comes from those adjacent neighborhoods and walks up through the VRE station over to WMATA or to our station, that access is being maintained.

Next slide, please.

So different view, but what this provides is the yellow is the existing platforms and the pedestrian overpass.

The pink area is how we'll be extending the platforms to ensure that we can open all eight doors on the train.

And then the green heading over to the left-hand side, that is the new pedestrian ramp and tunnel.

So the platforms will still be the same as they are right now, just above the top of the rail.

And there's just a long ADA compliant ramp that goes down parallel to the tracks and then ultimately turns and comes under that new third track, outletting towards the Barrie Road cul-de-sac.

Next slide, please.

Just to help visualize what that tunnel looks like, it does, if you look at the top right photo, you can see it starts off as more of a ramp with kind of a U-shaped wall supporting the tracks, keeping pedestrians and railroad traffic separated.

And then top left, as it starts getting deeper and actually turns and passes under the track.

So just to kind of give a little bit of a, I know it's a little hard to visualize that.

So next slide, please.

And where we're at right now, we are wrapping up final design.

Our 100% design plans are due later this month and we'll be using those to push forward with all of our permitting applications and looking to be soliciting for construction either very late 2025 or very early 2026 with looking to start construction

In the spring to summer, as Jeff mentioned earlier, there's a lot of facilitating work with utility relocations, things like that, that are in process.

So we're tracking those to make sure to figure out exactly when the start point will be.

Next slide.

Yep.

Thank you, Jason.

So thank you to the technical team for going over

all of the details of the project.

Now we'll get into our community outreach for the project.

So we've had some previous outreach already.

We've done a few neighborhood pop-ups.

You may have received some flyers or direct mail from us in the past.

We have hosted some public meetings regarding this project and some of the surrounding ones as well.

And VPRA is working very closely with Supervisor Lusk and Supervisor Stork's office on the projects.

Coming up, you may receive a flyer or a direct mailer from us.

We are sending out about 5,000 postcards that will have similar information to what you've seen during this presentation.

and obviously we have our community advisory group kick off today.

We will have more meetings in the future.

We don't have a schedule just yet of how often we will meet, but as the project progresses and as our outreach progresses, I will continue to reach out.

You'll continue to hear from me about the CAG schedule.

Coming up, you may see us in your neighborhood on September 8th.

We will be meeting at the Windsor Estates and Lowesdale Estates in the evening of September 8th.

So we will be on the corner of Windsor Avenue and Victor Gray.

from 4.30 to 5.30 on September 8th and then we will be moving over to Lowestale Estates and we will be on the sidewalk across from 6701 Jerome Street and we'll be there from 5.45 to 6.45.

If any of you are interested in coming to speak to us at that time and you would like me to repeat those addresses or where we are, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

That information is also on the direct mailer that we sent out.

And then we will have a, sorry, go back one, thank you so much.

We are hosting a right-of-way acquisition public meeting on September 11th.

This is specifically for people who will be directly impacted by the project.

They will be, if that is you, you will receive a letter from us letting you know.

It is still open to the public.

So if you may not be affected, but you still want to come and hear the meeting, you are absolutely more than welcome to.

So staying informed, our project website is available on the screen there.

The contact us information, our telephone and our email address.

Many of you also have my email address from correspondences leading up to this meeting.

Please visit our construction disruptions map.

This is a new tool we've created so that you can see exactly how the project construction are going to impact your life.

Please sign up for our updates, follow us on social media, and don't hesitate to reach out to myself or Meredith with any questions that you might have.

I think we can move on to our question and answer session.

So if you have a question, please raise your hand virtually, and our lovely Erin will help coordinate this part.

Thanks.

Yeah.

You can see on the screen there.

Can we go back to that slide real quickly?

You can see on the screen there, there's on the bottom of your zoom panel, there should be a button that looks like a heart and says react.

If you hover over that,

Click on it.

You can either raise your hand and then we'll try and call on the participants with their hands raised or feel free to drop any questions that you have in the chat.

So I'm just going to open that participant list and we'll see.

We'll see what we have.

I don't see anybody so far.

OK, Angela, did you have a question for us?

Okay.

Angela, we can't hear you if you're talking.

Maybe we can come back to you in a minute.

Dale, you have a great amount of feedback.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you for hosting the meeting.

First of all, it's been very informative.

If you could repost the, or in the chat, put the passengerrailauthority.org disruptions site, because I think that probably will be the best thing to get published in the area for people to be able to look at that and see what those disruptions will be.

I have two questions.

Number one, the Lorton Road bridge

Is that going to be east or west of the existing bridge?

In other words, will you be adding the lane, the track rail on the east or west side of that Lorton Road interchange?

Just trying to understand that, I mean, that's going to be a huge traffic bottleneck.

It already is due to the VDOT construction 123

and 95 down in Woodbridge and the traffic backs up through Lorton.

So that's going to have a major impact on traffic in that area.

And number two, you have a statement about Shoe Fly.

Sure, I can speak to both.

If I miss anything, Sarah can jump in.

Can anybody hear me?

Oh, I'm sorry.

It's a little better.

I don't know why it's muffled.

Okay, apologies for that.

No, for the Lord and Road Bridge, we are going to be widening to the east so that the illustration or the animation that Sarah showed earlier was looking from the east, so the expansion is eastward.

We are working with VDOT and CSX is proposing a transportation management plan will ultimately come up with a maintenance of traffic plan that will assist in

riding traffic when the bridge is under construction.

So that is still something that's in progress.

And as I mentioned, the Lord Road Bridge will not start until sometime in roughly 2027. so we are still working with them on that.

And the shoefly tracks are effectively sidings, but really what they're doing is they're a complete detour.

So it's not like a siding, which can sometimes be a place for trains to go kind of pull off to the side and let other tracks go by.

Thank you very much for both responses.

The reason I ask about the sightings is originally when we looked at the VRE expansion, and this is probably two year old information, there were a series of sightings starting north of Fredericksburg all the way up to in order to take care of the passenger traffic versus rail traffic, freight traffic, and that if those sightings are going to remain,

Sightings are certainly under design and will be under construction in the next couple of years.

We have six sightings that are contemplated throughout the DC to Richmond corridor.

There's a number of them in Fredericksburg.

That's actually my counterpart in Richmond manages those.

I can't speak as well to the details of them, but if you go to our website and look at some of the project maps and stuff that we have, they can show the different sightings that we are planning to build, which

are effectively third tracks for a number of miles.

Thank you very much for the explanation.

I think it would be very important to list the sidings that are north of the Occoquan River so that would be in the Lorton area proper that we would be able to see where those are located or proposed for reaction.

That is correct.

That was part of our preliminary engineering for the Francona to Lorton project.

We have designed that to 30%.

However, we did not have enough funding to continue all the way down to the Occoquan River.

So there is a remaining two mile segment from Lorton to Occoquan that we are looking to fund in the future.

Just the last comment, more of a comment than a question, and that is we were promised when the Long Bridge funding went through and lobbying for that Long Bridge funding, which our community did, that that would be part of the repair of that bridge would be part of that Long Bridge funding.

Disappointing.

OK, thank you.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes, yes.

Okay, so my questions pertain to more of a traveler, a passenger, I ride VRE.

Where does the third track start?

Does it start in Lorton or south of Lorton?

Sorry, the lights went off in my office.

No, so the third track will be starting just south of Lorton Station.

Okay, and then just on how it impacts travel,

So, Lorton Station Road, which is how we enter the VRE in Lorton, and that part of 95, how will that be impacted?

And I'm asking because there's school buses that go down that road, you know, I'm sure you all know all this, but how is that part impacted?

There will be some construction entrances around the Lorton Station area.

We are currently working with the county who owns the parking lot on how we will access that in the future.

But that's something that we haven't fully figured out yet because we're still working on how those will be accessed.

But we do recognize that there will be more in terms of, I think, construction traffic.

Okay, and do you know if we can get a bus set up during those times when it's closed to take us to the Springfield Station?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

We don't intend to actually shut down Morton Station at any point.

It will remain active.

Yeah, so I think there was, I think, Jeff, that might be stemming from one of the slides made reference to potential platform closures.

And just for clarity, right, that's really more oriented at Franconia Station, where there's more than one platform.

where we might only be able to board on one of the two current platforms.

And then my last question.

So Amtrak and CSX, they will continue to share a track?

Just VRE gets its own dedicated track?

No, the dedicated passenger track would be for Amtrak and VRE.

Though we do need, as long as we still have three tracks, we do need to make the third track what we call interoperable.

Okay, Amtrak and VRE may still share.

All right.

Great, thank you.

Mr. Kapoor, have we answered your question adequately in the chat?

Yes, you have.

Thank you.

Oh, miss, thank you.

Sorry about that.

Yes, thanks for having the meeting.

Question, can you have the slide deck that you showed during the meeting available on the website or some other way?

And lastly,

My understanding is there are no sound walls involved in any of this, and the reason I'm asking that is when they do road improvements around here, sometimes they run some equation and some neighborhoods get sound walls, but I understand the railroad doesn't do sound walls.

That is correct.

Just to speak to one of the questions in the chat about showing redesign of the Lorton VRE station with the third track shown.

The third track is actually on the far side of the rail corridor from the station.

So actually, from a station impact, there's almost no impact.

Thank you very much.

I understand that but I think it might be important for residents that are along there to understand the not only I think Tom's excellent question about noise impact but how that's going to look

from where they are and how the station will operate, how different would the station or the same for the VRE passengers.

It's a full lot.

There's a lot of VRE passengers there every day.

Yeah, we could certainly pull the relevant sheet just to demonstrate, right, that the

The existing station, the existing lot, the existing platform, all of that is unchanged both in its layout and in its operation.

There will be some temporary operational impacts, but even that will be limited to within the immediate footprint of the platform area.

Can anybody speak to future passenger rail scheduling?

Yeah, Jeff, I don't know if you're more in the weeds on this, but essentially what we're trying to do is make

schedule, modest schedule adjustments, not wholesale changes or major categorical changes, but to maximize the period in the middle of the day between our AM service going into DC and our PM service coming back out to maximize that time period so that contractors can get as much work done during that time as possible.

Because once we get outside of those hours, then we start running into

noise restrictions and things like that.

Yeah, that's a good point, Jason.

I know a lot of the schedule modifications are being done to accommodate the Long Bridge construction, which is a lot more constrained just because of the proximity of different buildings and whatnot to it.

That work is still ongoing right now, and I think towards in the next few months, certainly by the end of the year, we should see what the revised schedules are going to look like.

Absolutely.

I did mention that we will have new round trips that are activated once this work is done.

I don't know that we are near having a timetable for that yet, but we know generally where the destinations are going to be, the additional trains to Richmond, I think there's additional to Newport News.

further up north with Lumbers in Alexandria.

I want to give one last chance.

Anybody have any additional questions?

In that case, Jeff or Jenna, do you want to?

Sorry, there is a follow up here in the chat.

Jeff, can you see it?

Construction schedule for the?

Entire project.

Yes, ma'am.

For everything that you've presented today on the impact of adding the third rail from wherever to wherever will begin this fall of 2025, but it will not be completed until sometime in 2029.

That's correct.

The full package of projects that we presented today start pretty much this month and will continue to.

What we're targeting is early 2029.

And of course, it stands to reason too that it won't be in the entire six mile corridor for four years.

It'll be somewhat linear, sometimes parallel.

I think the bypass project just south of the station will be pretty active for the majority of that time.

But with a linear project like Third Track,

that is six miles long.

And then Jeff or Jenna, did you want to close us out?

Yes, sure, thank you.

So thank you, everybody, for taking the time to join us today and for your very thoughtful questions.

We really appreciate the opportunity to explain the project and the impacts to you.

I see a couple of questions about are slides going to be available.

Yes, the slides will be available on the project web page that Meredith has posted in the chat.

I will also be sending a follow-up email with links to the recording and links to the slides for anybody that is interested.

Again, thank you so much for your time.

The next meeting will likely be in about three months where the goal is to hold these on a quarterly basis, keeping you as up to date as possible.

Thank you, thank you.