Community Advisory Group CAG Meeting #5 Fairfax County Projects   9/23/2026

This mic does.

All right.

It's 1230.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to the Community Advisory Group meeting for Fairfax County Rail Improvement Projects.

This meeting is co-hosted by Virginia Passenger Rail Authority and Virginia Railway Express.

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Our agenda today highlights three key rail projects.

VPRA's Franconia-Dalorton Third Track Project, VPRA's Franconia-Springfield Bypass Project, and VRE's Franconia-Springfield Station Improvements Project.

We'll note progress made over the past three months, that is since the last community advisory group meeting, and what you can expect in the months ahead.

And of course, we'll leave time at the end for questions.

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This CAG is designed to maintain ongoing coordination and communication with leaders along the Fairfax rail corridor.

We meet on a quarterly basis and we greatly appreciate all your continued participation in these quarterly meetings.

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We'll go ahead and introduce our team that's speaking with you today.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Sarah Hoover.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Jeff Peltier with VPRA.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Katrina Corkadel.

Hi, everybody.

Afternoon.

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I think at this point, you're all familiar with our two agencies, Virginia Passenger Rail Authority and Virginia Railway Express.

VPRA is responsible for expanding and promoting passenger rail across the state of Virginia.

That's Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express service.

We design, build, fund, maintain, and manage passenger rail.

We do not operate rail service.

Rail is operated by our partners at Virginia Railway Express and Amtrak.

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VPRA is leading significant railroad construction projects across the Commonwealth.

The focus is on 11 major upgrades between Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia.

And this will dramatically improve Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express service, meeting our goals of improved capacity, efficiency and reliability.

Our goal is that by 2030, we will be able to provide hourly service between Washington, DC and Richmond.

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And Virginia Railway Express, as many of you know, is a long standing commuter rail service in our region offering service on two routes, one out west from DC to the Manassas and Broad Run area and one south to the Fredericksburg Spotsylvania area.

And VRE currently offers 16 daily trains on each line.

So, let's begin with our construction updates for today.

We will start with Sarah Hoover, who is VPRA's project manager for the Franconia to Lord and Third Track project.

Thank you, Meredith.

So there are a host of projects that are currently existing within Fairfax County, specifically three of them we will talk about today.

So we have the Franconia-Lorton Third Track, which adds a third main line along what is considered one of the most heavily traveled parts of the rail corridor from Long Bridge all the way down to Richmond.

We have the Bypass, which is a railroad bridge that allows specifically passenger trains to cross over

the existing CSX right away, specifically the freight tracks, and it helps to serve passenger platforms on both sides of those tracks.

And then we have the Franconia Springfield VRE station, which is being done in conjunction with the VPRA projects.

The improvements there will include longer platforms and a new pedestrian underpass.

And you can see here on the right, this map shows the blue, which is the corridor for the third track project overall.

and then the bypass which is within that limit and then also the Franconia Springfield Station improvements that are within that limit as well.

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So looking specifically at the Franconia to Lorton third track, this is a six mile third mainline track that is being constructed from Alexandria to Lorton.

As part of that, we do have railroad bridges that are being built over Newington Road and Lorton Road and also additional infrastructure that is being constructed to accommodate that additional third track along the corridor as well.

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So as I mentioned earlier, there are two bridge projects that are happening.

They're not the only two.

There are two additional ones.

So the four locations are Newington Road, Acton Creek, Pohick Creek, and Lorton Road.

Specifically at Newington and Pohick, we have circumstances where the existing railroad bridge will be removed and replaced.

And then we are building an adjacent railroad bridge next to it.

At Occatink and Lorton, we're simply building a new railroad bridge adjacent to the existing structure.

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So this is the project schedule from a very general overhead sense for the third track.

We are, of course, through the design review process.

We're also in the back end of property acquisition.

And as you can see with that vertical dark blue line, we are heading into procurement and construction.

I'll go into the dates a little bit more specifically on the next slide, but we do have the bid out, or I should say it was bid out or advertised out, excuse me, that happened in August.

And then the construction completion is currently slated for mid-2029.

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So looking to some more detail about what has recently been completed, what is ongoing, and what is upcoming for the work at Third Track.

We've completed all our environmental permitting.

We've done all the review for the design.

We finalized our right-of-way packets for acquisition, which are currently out with those that are being affected by the project.

And we finalized the new construction of the beltway interlocking or control point beltway, and we've retired Ravensworth.

Currently,

As I mentioned earlier, we are in our right of way acquisition and are trying to finalize that.

We hope to have all the parcels in hand by the end of the month.

We do have the construction procurement going on.

So the advertisement was released August 7th, October 16th is when bids are due from different contractors that are interested.

We actually had a pre-bid site walk earlier this month for those that were interested.

And then we have tree felling, which is now complete specifically for Fairfax sewer only.

We intend to begin relocation construction for the sewer lines that are along this corridor.

There are four of them.

I'll go into that in a little bit here.

And throughout this whole process, we continue to coordinate with VDOT in the areas where we are operating over VDOT right away or in conjunction with VDOT right away.

Some upcoming work that we do have is the construction notice to proceed.

So for this particular project, we will actually have two.

The initial one

will be in November of this month, which will allow for the winter tree clearing to occur once the time of year restriction is lifted in November.

We also have utility relocations ongoing along the corridor, whether they are fiber, sewer, of course, petroleum, et cetera.

And then the full construction NTP or notice to proceed will be executed in the spring of 2027.

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So as part of that Franconia-Lorton Third Track Early Works package, which is the CP Beltway installation and the CP Ravensworth retirement, we just have some images here that show the new signal work that was occurring at the new CP Beltway and adjacent to it.

And the next signal structure is just north of it at Eisenhower Ave, just to give you an idea of some of the work that has been going on out in the field.

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So talking more about the Santee Sioux relocation, these are four crossings that occur along the corridor that we are relocating on behalf of the county.

The locations are at Berry Road, Newington Road, Cinder Bed Road, and the Lorton VRE station.

The right of way has already been acquired for all this, whether it was temporary or permanent, so those that are affected have been spoken to and coordinated with.

We continue to work with the county in regards to bypass plans and installations.

and also just the construction overall to make sure we are minimizing any disruptions or hopefully eliminating any disruptions to any service that's occurring in these lines.

And we have a contractor on board.

We executed a notice to proceed with them this past Friday.

So we intend to begin construction this month and we hope to be completed by mid-2027.

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Moving back to the Franconia-Lorton third track, we do have several construction access points that are under consideration.

You can see all the red arrows on this image on the right showing those locations.

The list that we're currently tracking is Gunston Cove Road, Lorton Market Street, Lorton Road, Lorton Station Boulevard, Pohick Road, Cinderbed Road, Terminal Road, Newington Road, and Berry Road.

Now with that said, this does look like quite a list, but these locations will not be all used simultaneously.

They will be used depending on the construction in certain locations of the corridor.

So it will not necessarily be an instance where I guess it's about nine locations will be used all at once.

It would be maybe one to three locations depending on the construction that's actively occurring throughout the construction timeline.

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So looking specifically at the railroad bridge over in Newington, as many of you are aware already, this is a stone bridge with a single lane beneath it currently out specifically at Newington.

We intend to replace this bridge with a wider bridge, and we have been coordinating that design with VDOT.

The construction timeline for this is going to be determined by when we select the contractor, but we hope begins construction the second quarter of 2027.

And once we complete the installation of this wider railroad bridge, we intend to install an interim condition underneath for the roadway.

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So with the completion of the railroad bridge by VPRA, we will be putting back a bidirectional road, so a two-lane road underneath to allow for two-way traffic in regards to vehicular access at the time.

This has been accounted for as part of our budget with the railroad widening.

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Next slide, and I think it is bypass.

So as Sarah mentioned, the Francona Springfield Bypass Project is essentially a flyover structure that lets us access platform stations on either side of the corridor.

The next slide shows renderings.

So if you can move to the next slide.

Yeah, so some renderings of that, what that bridge structure is going to look like.

As you can see where, you know, the V area train is shown going over the CSX tracks, and that's that's what we're doing out here.

And next slide, please.

So right now we're about a year in construction with construction expected to be

complete by the end of 2029.

A lot of active construction going on, which I will detail in the next slide.

So if we can move to the next one.

So recently completed, we did a test drill shaft.

We did a couple of those just to make sure we understand if our design meets the actual capacity out in the field.

We also completed retaining wall five.

So there's a picture of just right above that

showing a soil mill being installed for retaining wall five.

What we have ongoing right now is equipment delivery and staging.

That's going to happen for the next few years.

We have temporary drainage installation ongoing.

We are working on retaining walls 4A1 and 4A2.

These are some of the taller walls that we have just by Darby Lane.

Utility Relocation.

So similar to Sarah, we have the fiber optics relocation going on and hopefully the Kinder Morgan pipeline starting very soon.

We also have bridge steel fabrication ongoing at our fabrication shop in Pennsylvania.

And then we've actually started the actual drill shaft.

So these will be the drill shafts that we'll be using as foundation elements for our bridge.

Upcoming work.

So continue our retaining wall.

We have a few more that we're going to start very soon.

Continue our drill shaft.

So just for like our big bridge structure, which we call Unit B, we have about 180 shafts that we're going to install.

So a lot of foundation elements that we're building out here.

We'll start the culvert installation at Berry Road that gives us better access to the site.

And then also jack and bore.

Basically, we're drilling underneath the tracks to install these culverts, so jack and bore culverts.

and then the shoe flight track construction should start right after the jack and bores are done.

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Some pictures of construction.

So on the left we have the test drill shafts, actually the reinforcing cage being installed for that.

And on the right we have temporary drainage and it is temporary and it is pretty big just to make sure that we're not clogging up water around the railroad.

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And so the top left, like I mentioned, fiber optics.

So that's Lumen actually out there doing some conduit installation.

And then the bottom left is the retaining wall for a soil nails being installed.

That wall is much taller now and that's the third tier they're working on.

We're on Tier 5 right now.

and then top right retaining wall 5 drainage being installed.

So that's the drainage at the top of the wall.

And then bottom right is retaining wall 4A shotcrete.

So that's the process.

They install the nail and then they basically spray concrete on it to make it a permanent structure.

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Mentioned this before, you know, we have a lot of access points.

We're making sure, you know, we're not just using one access point.

We spread it around.

So just making sure our construction vehicles are spread around and only using the access point that's closest to their work location.

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As always, you know, construction going on.

So there's going to be some disruption, some noise generated by construction.

So we have trucks coming in and out.

You know, there's construction noise near the railroad tracks and also work occurring at night.

That's, you know, that's when we have the larger work windows, you know, when less trains are running at night.

And, you know, like I've mentioned before, you know, when excavators and bulldozers are working, they're similar to lawnmowers.

Trucks and dump trucks are similar to a lawnmower, you know, not very loud.

And we rarely use jackhammer and drills in the project right now, but if they are used, they're more like a motorcycle or chainsaw.

All right, moving on to the station again.

Katrina Corkdale with VRE.

So essentially the goal of the VRE Station Improvements Project is to lengthen the platform on both sides so we can accommodate a car length so that way everyone can get out, board and alight the train.

And then in conjunction with the third track project, we are adding a pedestrian underpass so we can maintain access to Berry Road for pedestrian access.

Go to the next slide.

So again, what I just said, but a big portion of this project will also be a lot of upgrades and modifications to the station.

So repairing the pedestrian bridge, repairing the stairs, repairing the concrete, essentially giving the whole station a facelift, which will be very nice.

And then during the project, we'll make sure we maintain pedestrian access to the station, which is very important.

But overall, we'll be increasing our operational flexibility and then just giving the station a really good refresh.

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And then in terms of schedule, so we are wrapping up our invitation for bid drawings.

So that package is expected to come out in a month or so.

And then once we go through stakeholder review, then we will be on our way to IFB.

VPRA has done all the property acquisition we need for the project and that has been completed.

And then

along with the third track and bypass projects, utility relocation coordination is underway and we are well into the permitting progress now.

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And then you can see here some of the renderings we have in the top right corner.

It's an idea of what the pedestrian underpass will kind of look like.

Not pictured is the interaction with third track.

This side of the screen, I guess if you're looking at the rendering, will be where Third Track will be and that will have its own retaining wall and will run alongside that platform extension.

Thank you, Katrina.

Over the last year, we have sent 5,000 postcards to residences and businesses, and we have met with supervisors and stakeholders.

We've tabled at Windsor Estates and Lowesdale Estates, and we've also provided a site tour to Supervisor Lusk.

We're looking forward to continuing our outreach efforts.

You can look forward to a project newsletter next month with information from today's meeting plus any new updates.

and we are sending out a letter alerting residents to the upcoming tree felling.

Residents within 0.1 miles of the corridor will receive this letter.

We will continue to host these quarterly CAG meetings and next spring you can expect to see us tabling in your neighborhoods again.

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If you haven't already, please sign up for our project updates on our website and follow us on social media.

As we move into expanding construction across our projects, you can view potential construction impacts using our construction disruptions map.

This map is available on our website as well as by following the link on the screen.

If you have any concerns regarding construction in your community, please contact our construction hotline.

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Our friends at VRE are actively informing the regular commuters on Project Progress through their channels as well, and I urge you to follow them, especially if you are a regular VRE writer.

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Let's open up the floor to questions from our community advisory group.

You can raise your hand.

Probably that's the easiest.

Why don't you raise your hand in the chat and we will call on you.

Or if you would rather type into the chat, that's fine too.

Let's see.

Anyone raising their hands?

Ah, here we go.

I actually, I'm not sure if I'm on the right call or not, but I'm kind of towards the northern half of this project in Alexandria in Delray.

And they began doing construction on the railroad right outside our building, maybe the beginning of the summer, like May, June.

And I had emailed your team looking for like, I guess more like timeline of when the night work would kind of move beyond our building.

Yes, I believe we did receive your question.

That is actually on our Alexandria Fourth Track project, but you're in luck.

Our project manager for the Alexandria Fourth Track is also on this call.

Yes, so there will still be some continued construction there into the near future, basically till the end of the year at least.

While they continue to install special track work and such, it's near Slater's Lane, Meredith, for reference.

So there's some turnovers and switches and such, or turnouts and switches that need to be installed in that area.

So there will be initial completion of work by the end of the year, but I will say there might be some intermittent civil work that goes on throughout the construction timeline for the entire fourth track installation.

Yes, thank you Sarah.

Awesome, thank you so much.

It's more also them blowing the horn in the middle of the night because

I work in one of the apartment buildings so the residents are being awoken every night by the horns blowing because I guess the trains that are approaching have to let the workers know that they're coming.

That is required.

Okay, understood.

Awesome.

Thank you guys so much.

Thank you very much.

Once again, excellent briefing.

This is like the third or fourth one I've attended.

You guys put it together.

Your visuals are very helpful for those of us that are visual learners and all the rest of the word salad going beyond.

I mean, you guys show exactly what it is.

I like the color coding on that.

That really helps.

A couple of questions.

That's actually the notification area, the 0.1 miles.

Those are the people that we're contacting to let you know that the tree removal is happening.

Yes.

So all, whether it's a temporary easement or permanent easement.

So those that have been affected have already been contacted if they're having trees removed on their property.

I think it'd be helpful to next, when you do the next one, maybe look at a shading from that distance back on what is the right away.

So I think people have a better idea.

I mean, if it's somebody's favorite sycamore tree,

But it's within that and all of a sudden now it's going to go away.

At least they would know where it's going to be, where it is and what's going to happen with that, OK?

My next question has to do with the construction access points.

There's like four of them from the Lorton area.

Can you explain what a construction access point means?

So part of it depends on the work that's being completed.

In some areas, if it's simply just track work that's under construction, you would see some rock trucks coming through with delivery of materials and things like that.

If it's a retaining wall, you may see a bit more traffic as they get parts of the wall or a crane or things brought in.

The areas that are being affected, actually we've marked out if they were directly affected, say like a private property or a business is being directly affected by that.

We are coordinating that with the right-of-way team and those particular properties so they know how they're being directly affected.

There will be increased traffic.

I don't want to state exactly how much that would be until we have our contractor on board and can really confirm what they intend to use the access points for.

So maybe that might be a future CAG question for sure.

but the intent would be to basically create points where trucks and materials etc.

It might help on those construction access points if you go ahead and put in parens and a number of exact do you get the contractor number of expected trucks to be going in there that's going to tell locals

and commuters coming through there, what can they expect as far as disruption to their normal computer lane or where I live, their access point?

One other thing, your spring of 2027 neighborhood tabling meeting, do you apply for your neighborhood to be included in that or is it going to be done on just a neighborhood regional basis?

I noticed you did Lowestdale Road, etc.

To this point, we have done our tabling in Windsor Estate and Lowestdale Estates because those were the neighborhoods who had the biggest impact, but we sent the letter to invite people to participate to a much broader area.

We're looking at expanding to Newington Road in the spring.

We haven't defined the exact locations yet, but since we will be doing work at the rail bridge location, we're thinking of adding that.

That is why we're here.

We want your suggestions.

So you can, if you have a suggestion right now, please share it or you can reach out to us later.

Thank you very much.

We have your name and there's one other person that's also a community liaison so we can get back to them.

Did I hear it?

Remember, I'm not thinking well, I'm visual.

Did I hear it right that the Newington Road

is only going to be widened.

It's not going to go to the full two full lanes.

And that's up to VDOT whether or not to widen it after that.

So the interim condition, which is when VPRA will be complete with the bridge installation is to put a two lane road in.

Thank you very much, and I apologize for listening, but the mid-October 2029 is now the completion date, right?

Mid... Oh, it's mid-year, it's mid-2029.

Yes, sir.

Mid-2029.

We don't have that yet.

It'll be based on when the contractor comes on board and when we look at the phasing and how they think the most appropriate process or schedule or phasing for the locations are.

OK, because two meetings ago it was going to be October, November of this year.

And so now that looks like it's slid a little bit, waiting to see who that contractor is and how they're going to do that.

We ask that because Lorton Road has become an incredible bottleneck right now without any other construction on that.

And there's going to need to be a sizable public relations event meeting with getting out to television and no longer any newsprint.

that would look at it and try to explain that there may be other or better ways because that traffic is going to be somewhere between impossible and horrendous.

So just somewhere on that scale.

And the earlier we do that, I think the better off that the area is going to be.

Because, I mean, it has become, Lorton Road has become the choke point place for people wanting to get off of Route 1, get off of 95 and try to slide to Prince William County and go up Lorton Road in order to do that.

I can tell you right now from 4.15 to about 6.30 every night, it's door to door.

That's it.

Nothing moving.

We have residents that can't get out of their developments because of it.

I have every faith because you've done so well so far.

I would also add to that all the work that we're doing on Lorton Road in the roadway itself is being coordinated with VDOT.

We have maintenance of traffic plans, we have signal timing considerations with them, and we have to work everything through their operations center.

Well, thank you, Mr. Pelletier, for that comment.

If I had faith in VDOT, the roads would have been mowed, but we can't even get roadways mowed.

So major traffic impact has got me a little, a little verkrumpt on that.

Understood.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we will, when we have more information about when this work's happening in our outreach strategy, we can share that with this group for further feedback, make sure we're touching all the key people.

Let's see.

I did have a question.

I had to run, but I can certainly ask.

More on the solicitation mid-side.

I did hear, I think it was Mr. Adil, mention steel fabrication and that they had a facility somewhere in Pennsylvania that fabricated steel.

We're a local steel fabricator, so I know

I would say that we can connect you with our procurement department and you know if there are you know direct contracts that we have for steel coming out we can definitely you know include you in that list

Generally, we select a general contractor who selects their own fabricator.

That'd be awesome.

I can do that.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Hello, how are you doing?

I am the Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Newberry Station Homeland Association.

We're 182 homes and we are the property that is closest to the center bed road, the Newington Road railroad underpass that you're going to be working on.

We have

A lot of concerns about that.

First of all, as the prior Speaker Dale said, we're not at all confident that VDOT will ever have the money for the ultimate condition.

And then we look at the interim condition and we see nothing but a two-lane road and no pedestrian walkways, no bicycle lanes, no nothing.

And it seems to me that as part of the interim, there ought to be consideration to at least having a pedestrian walkway along with

the additional road lane.

So there's two-way road plus pedestrian walkway plus a bike path hopefully.

I don't know why that can't be part of the interim condition.

So currently there are still discussions on what the condition will look like beneath the bridge between different parties.

We're actually not the lead entity on it so we're a part of the process but not necessarily the deciding factor.

We do

Yeah, I would add to that Sarah that there's just there are discussions going on with us that we are not privy to, but you know, as we get information we'd be happy to share as it comes in this CAG meeting.

It is possible that by the next CAG there will be some further developments on that,

So let me just conclude by that part by saying that we would really like concern to be given some emphasis be given to that possibility.

Because like I said, I'm not at all convinced that the ultimate condition will ever be realized if it's spent entirely on VDOT funding, which sometimes gets very, very spartan.

The next most more important consideration is how the traffic flow is going to be managed

when the underpass is shut down for construction.

I presume it will be shut down completely for construction, will it not?

That is something that we are coordinating with VDOT.

It has not been confirmed yet.

We feel that that's the safest way to replace the bridge, given that it's currently a one lane underpass.

That is another topic actually that we feel like we'll be ready to talk about the next quarterly CAG.

We aren't there yet and we also don't have a contractor yet that's on board for this.

But yeah, we understand that if we were to close part of Newington Road that there would need to be detouring and signaling and operations work, signage

Everything that needs to go into making that happen.

Right now, if you go on Cinebed Road and Newington Road, there are there are actually two bridges which can be choke points.

Obviously, the one lane underpass is a potential choke point.

And also the Army has a recovered bridge long since abandoned on Cinebed Road itself, which is also very, very narrow.

and I sent you all photos of traffic accidents that have completely shut down that underpass over time.

And right now, if one shuts down, the other is available.

But now, when it's under construction, the only path out seems to be would be a down center bed road, going over to back the road and up onto the parkway.

And that means that that army bridge can become a real problem, real hazard.

And it's

Long overdue for complete demolition.

It's falling apart.

Pieces of the bridge keep falling down.

Army owns it, but has never really paid any attention to it.

And it has always been a real hazard.

And now with the closing off of the underpass under Newington Road, it becomes a real potential choke point.

And we have a lot of cars, a lot of heavy traffic that comes off down Center Bed Road.

We've got three bus garages, WMATA,

the Connector Bridge and the School Bus Garage.

Plus you have a huge industrial park which has fleets of huge trucks.

And if those are bottled up, the only access they would have is to be Newton Road and Newton Road would be a very, very dangerous road for any kind of the traffic.

So I think real consideration ought to be given somehow to taking that army bridge out completely.

Beyond that,

So then you have the Parkway, the intersection between the Parkway and Backlick Road, you know, the old Backlick Road that connects Centerbread Road to the Parkway.

And the timing on that right now is terrible because, you know, it's meant to be a small feeder road.

And so it gets very, very little opportunity for traffic coming up.

and up Centerbed Road to Bagliff Road to get out of the Parkway.

Very, very hard to do that and can easily be, you can easily see a situation where you got a huge backup, a loose pile of trucks and whatnot trying to make it pass through that choke point.

Now, when you rebuilt the bridge over at Bagliff Road, when you rebuilt that bridge, you actually built

a bypass road that connected Backlick Road to the Parkway more directly.

It was a long ramp near the far eastern section of Backlick Road, a ramp that would actually allow trucks to come up and join the Parkway without having to even go through the traffic light.

I would highly recommend that you consider that too.

At the base of that Backlick Road, there's

a lot of gasoline trucks and those gasoline trucks could actually go onto the parkway up a path that doesn't require them to join the parade of trucks trying to get through the light at the intersection of Bathaker and the parkway.

That would really be useful.

It's something you ought to consider.

That's all my way of saying in the long run is that I would really like to see the community involved

and any planning for all the bypass and detours.

Understood.

I know there was a lot there.

Like I said, we are still working on our maintenance of traffic plan for the area.

I will say that

The bridge you mentioned that is the Army's property or an extension of Fort Belvoir.

That's something we kind of learned about as we were developing our projects that that is still owned by the Army as part of the Fort Belvoir Garrison.

It is challenging in that it is that segment of railroad is on the National Historic Register, which brings up a lot of other challenges and how you preserve or remove and things like that.

I would highly recommend it.

After all, you say it's part of this historic preservation stuff, but there's no track on either side of it.

It goes nowhere.

I mean, the track has long been removed on either side of it.

There's nothing there except a decrepit bridge with the

who just actually said it's falling apart.

I mean, you can look up and stand beneath it and look up and see the sky and hope that pieces of it don't fall on you.

And because it's just been abandoned, it's not being preserved at all.

If it's supposed to be a historical preservation thing, no one's preserving it.

All right.

Thank you.

Appreciate your questions.

Looks like the next person we have is Keith Shovlin, South County Federation.

Just a couple of quick questions on the design phase.

where we are on the side for Lorton Road and the Pohick Creek Bridges.

I just wanted to know where the bridge works.

The Lorton Road Bridge will be on the east side or the west side of the existing bridge.

On the west side, it's more towards the entrance of the auto train to the left side.

We will be up against the Lorton Station clock tower.

Now for the Pohick Creek one, that's the complete replacement, right?

Yes.

There have been a push a while back to try to include a path underneath that bridge to go along Forward Creek to connect the VRE station to the communities on the other side of the railway and I-95.

So that is not currently a part of the design.

We actually have a comprehensive rail agreement with CSX that say that we cannot

as VPRA install recreational trails and such within our right of way.

I can put in the chat the link to the information about the

The DCR process for requesting some kind of change that would allow for a trail.

There's a process called HB2088.

And we have all the details on our website.

So I will put the link in the chat if you want to pull that up.

Yes, thank you.

There we go, on my mic, sorry.

I just want to follow up on the on the Pohick Bridge and just to

say that the connection through there is not really a recreational trail.

It's a connection from one side of the community to the other.

It would be used for recreation.

It could be used for transportation for all those things.

But if what you say is true that you can't put recreational trails underneath your bridges, then nobody could get across from one side to the other.

You'd be unable to walk from

any side of the track to the other.

And I think that's maybe a little bit misleading in your part.

I wish that you would look into that more.

I serve as the Fairfax County Trail Sidewalk and Bikeway Committee Representative for Mount Vernon.

We've gone through an extensive process to do an active transportation plan.

This connection has been in the comprehensive plan since the 1970s.

And so I'm a little bit concerned that it's sort of

gets ignored because you think it's a recreational trail and you can't do it for the reason of your deed restriction.

So I just would like some more information about what the deed restriction actually limits and why you can't make a connection.

You're doing it under Newington Road.

You need to do it a lot more.

You can't just put up a big wall from one side of the community to the other because you're providing a great passenger rail service.

I love the passenger rail.

I love the project.

I just think you need to be more sensitive to the needs for people to get from one side of the tracks to the other.

And when you're doing a project like this, it represents kind of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get this connection to be built.

It can be done easily during construction.

You're going to have to get underneath there.

To construct a bridge, you'll have to create some level areas under there.

It can fit as a

I've done in terms of getting pedestrian underpasses under rail service.

I worked on the Anacostia River Trail as a trail designer on that, a lead trail designer.

We designed protection underneath that.

So it's readily and easily available and done and can be done.

I wish that you would maybe make a greater effort to to get that to be built instead of kind of falling back on your deed restriction, which I'm not sure I fully understand.

But thank you for your time.

And again, I'm 100% love the project and all that.

Well, I mean, there's a couple parts to it.

I mean, there's the deed restriction alone, but there's also, as you mentioned, the HB, what is it?

2020, the one from 2009.

I mean there is a process that is meant to overall govern how railroad property, railroad right-of-way is dealt with when it comes to trails.

Railroad right-of-way is in short supply across the country and there's a process that's been established for several years now on how to do that.

We would have to go through that process like any other trail.

And at that point,

Once that process was followed and the railroad entities are engaged, then we would have to deal with the fact that we have a restrictive railroad covenant.

We would also have to work with our design restrictions, CSX's design restrictions and whatnot.

And we are doing that in other parts of the state.

There are pedestrian bridges that are being installed, other trails that are being worked through the process.

So there is a path to make getting it done.

I'm not going to say that it's easy, and I can sympathize with that being a tough process, but to a certain degree, our hands are tied on that, and we can't necessarily proactively plan for all of the planets to align on those situations.

So this is a tough one, understood, but we are where we are at the moment.

But I would certainly encourage folks to read what Meredith has provided.

This is something we've talked about with a lot of different stakeholders and potential trail project sponsors.

Any other questions?

I don't see any other hands up in the chat right now or any other hands raised or

questions in the chat.

Oh, here's one more.

Hey, folks, thank you very much for doing this.

And you've heard from a number of the community members that have been very attuned to this project for years and particularly want to thank the South County Federation, Keith and Dale and others for their deep involvement for decades.

And this is one of those decades

Long Processes, and to be honest, I know Jim earlier has talked about a generational, I think this is a multi-generational impact, and we know how those goes.

For any of us in the community, if you drive Route 1 north or south and you hit the rail lines, the CSX rail lines there, you know that you have a century plus old bridge there that is still with us, and so we're very focused on making sure that

A century from now when people are still, are probably going to be still using these bridges that they've accommodated what I think we all value.

And more importantly, I know the community values today.

And that gets to really the comments that you've heard and the issues that you've heard.

I just kind of tap onto them a little bit just to let folks know that I'm attuned to them and sensitive to them.

Obviously the closing of the underpass at

Newington is a big deal and that's going to take a lot of planning and other work to ensure, I'm assuming that that only will be what has to happen, but whatever that might be, we're definitely going to want to have you all come back and kind of share the plans and allow the folks on the ground that live and kind of do this every day to give you some good, honest, on the ground kind of advice about whether or not we think it's going to work or not.

The bike ped facilities, I know that you all have seen my letter and the board's letter supporting what we need bike ped.

And I know that's still in the works and I appreciate what you all have done and your work with VDOT.

And I'm confident and maybe not confident, I'm comfortable that somebody will be stepping up and ensuring that the follow on means that we have a 21st century bike ped access under the Newington Bridge.

I know from all of you, the center bed road bridge when that was done and the challenges that that showed and the access roads.

I think it was Mike, Mr. Miller that talked about that.

And that's a real issue and one that I don't have also a immediate answer, but it's immediate sense of what it should be.

But I know that if we don't do that right, we will

sentenced the community, particularly if the bridge is closed, which will sentence the community to frankly a year from hell about traffic and just trying to make the system work because of all the industrial and commercial buses and trucks and everything else that go through there.

So I'm here to, if you will, to kind of further highlight and emphasize that those are real big deals.

The Army Bridge, man, I've had many conversations with the commanders in the past.

I know the historical designation is what, as we all know, can make that very difficult.

I also don't see how it can be used.

Look, I'm a trail guy and would love to see some kind of trail, but I also know that Fort Belvoir doesn't do that in general.

So it's unlikely that that would ever be, the bridge could ever be repurposed or used or restored

for anything like that.

So then the question is, you know, what's going to be done with it?

And right now it's just falling down on on the roadway and potentially cars and pedestrians that might walk underneath it.

So I'll continue to take that on with the new commander at Fort Belvoir.

But I mean, anybody who's dealt with Fort Belvoir knows they rarely have any money to do anything.

And ultimately that gets escalated to the commanding general and into the old army system.

And that's a whole

Challenge bigger than all of us, to be honest.

But I think we all need to keep on that and keep focused on that because the only way it's going to change is if there's a strong voice from all of us that something has to be done to reduce and improve the safety for folks who live in the area.

And I mentioned the community bypass and the community involvement of the bypass and the detour and all that.

I also, and I think you all, I know some of you all are familiar with this, again, the advocacy that I've had and we've had in the community to ensure that we can walk under the new VPRA, DRPT rail line.

And I have yet to hear an answer and I've talked to others and I know that they were going to, I mean, to some of the leadership in DRPT and VPRA with a specific question,

about, and this is the question I think at a moment that we should all expect will get answered and get answered formally in writing so that we can rely on it and be comfortable that that wouldn't be a reason why we couldn't have a trail across underneath the new VPRA DRPT bridge, which is that there's a sufficient clearance, you know, by standard trail standards, if you will,

for a trail to go underneath that, underneath the bridge.

And I know that others on here are far more familiar with that.

I know in general, we're looking at, you know, at least, ideally at least a 10 foot clearance from the path to the bridge and any other devices or protections that VPRA or DRPT would need, as well as some width for the path.

But those are like,

I would say central core issues that without that, you're gonna hear a lot more from all of us.

And so I think my question more than any other at this point in time is to at least confirm what I would expect, which is that ability to go underneath the bridge can be done consistent with what the standards might normally be for a trail or any kind of crossing

going underneath rail tracks.

So if you have an answer for that, I'm definitely interested in it.

And if not today, then I'm looking for something in writing.

And if so, then I can put something in writing to more formally ask that.

And we did receive a letter a few days ago to our board chair.

We're working on a more formal response.

I think I would just note the process that Jeff and Sarah mentioned, the House Bill 2088 process that we're required to follow.

OK. And so that would also be true with the railroad bridges being built.

So Newington Road would have to follow that same process because the trail will be crossing underneath the Newington Bridge.

Mariia, that can jump in.

Newington is somewhat different in that it was already written into our agreement with CSX of what would be underneath the bridge.

So we have, I don't want to say lots of flexibility, but it is a lot more defined and understood what is there in terms of a shared use path.

I think POEC is a different situation.

It was not part of the initial planning and

You know, early conceptual design for the corridor.

So it's in something of a different category.

I know that, and I'm obviously I'm disappointed that that didn't happen.

And I maybe I have some accountability responsibility for that, but it also was something that we did

We did a study, we started in 2017, we finished it in 2019, but it's in the comprehensive plan for the county.

I guess I'm trying to understand why and what else we could or should have done to ensure that the same

if you will, standard that was used at Newington for committing that.

I can't speak for what was, some of that predates a lot of us, including me here at VPRA.

I again think Newington was a bit simpler because VDOT was involved and VDOT was providing funding for the design that created the space under the bridge for Newington Road and any improvements to Newington Road.

I don't know how far the Laurel Hill Trail had progressed at that point and I can't speak for that.

That'd be great.

There's nothing else.

There's lessons to be learned here.

And I have obviously on this call are some key advocates, community advocates, and I would, I'm sure that they want to do what I'm trying to do, which is make sure that things that are in the comprehensive plan that we would expect would have been included and utilized by, you know, VPRA or DRPT or CSX or anybody else would have, you know, been part of the

And if people weren't sure, they would have contacted us.

And then because we did this study and we spent, I don't know, something less than $100,000, but still it's some really detailed work about trail crossings and all that.

I can send it to anybody who would like to see it.

It was done and completed again in 2019.

Okay.

And I know we have one where it was envisioned as a pedestrian bridge through Lorton Station.

And the pedestrian bridge got nixed, but in many ways, this is a far better, so far better option, more likely to be used option, which is why the community and kind of all of us have focused on it.

And we've gotten, I mean, VDOT has said in terms of crossing under 95, they're good with that.

And

They can work with us on that.

And so CSX was always one of those that we knew we were going to have to tackle at some point.

But we also didn't think we'd have to tackle and persuade a state organization who should be very committed and very familiar with our comprehensive plans and ensuring that they are connected to Fairfax County and the work that we do as well so that we don't have to kind of

To repeat that, that would be something that would already be in folks' work that they were doing.

Well, I look forward to something in writing that spells that out, and then we will organize ourselves locally here to see how we need to respond if the results are not favorable, because you're going to get a huge community response if it's not.

Well, I appreciate you doing this very much and you have some great leaders.

And it looks like we have, we're almost out of time, but we have

We are out of time, but we have two more questions in the chat.

I'll just combine them.

Will space, oh, we already discussed this.

Will space be available trails under Pohick and Akaton creeks?

And have there been any discussions with VDOT regarding the Pohick Road overpass regarding I-95 bidirectional project and third track project space for fourth track?

Yeah, I can handle that one, Meredith.

We have been in discussion with VDOT over the last few years on bi-directional.

As some of you probably know, the project has changed a bit in scope over the last year from what it was originally planned to be.

The project would widen I-95 right at Pohick Road where our track is right up against I-95.

There's an acknowledgement on both sides that we will need to come up with some sort of compromise.

We have shown VDOT what our plan is for the corridor with a future fourth track.

So we've kind of space proofed what we call the corridor for what the fourth track would be in that area.

And our projects do come into conflict.

So we do understand that whether it's some type of wall structure or something is going to have to be done.

in this area to separate I-95 in the railroad corridor.

But that project is still in development.

And I think once they get contractors and designers on board that are ready to engage in that process, it's still more of an idea or a concept that we're working through than any sort of

Progress at the moment.

My understanding is that VDOT and their developer would prefer not to modify or change the Pohick Road Bridge.

They would like to leave it as is.

All right.

Thank you, Jeff.

Yes.

Can I make one last quick observation?

Yes.

Yes.

Following up on Supervisor Stork had to say about the Army Bridge.

A couple of things.

One is if any money is available for detours and whatnot, perhaps some of that money might be available to demolish the army bridge.

And secondly, if you've got a contractor on site to demolish the bridge over Newington Road, well, you could ride that contract to have that contractor go a half mile down the road and take out the other bridge.

You could get two bridges demolished with price of one, essentially.

So that's something else to take, potentially to take to the Army and say, look, we've got to have someone on site demolishing the bridge A, we can have that same contract demolish bridge B, and it'd be a lot less expensive as a consequence.

And we might even have some money to pay for that, because we're going to have to have money for detours and stuff anyway.

So something to think about.

And again, you can joke to say that that bridge is subject to historic preservation when not a dime has been spent to preserve the bridge from completely falling apart.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

And we are out of time now.

I just want to say how much we appreciate everyone coming to these quarterly meetings, sharing your feedback.

We look forward to continued collaboration.

I'm sorry, I just I put in the chat a link to the Board of Supervisors.

We had a transportation presentation yesterday about the I-95 corridor, and I think people here might be interested in at least what was presented to the board about what that might look like.

Thank you.

Appreciate that very much.

All right.

Well, again, thank you to everyone for being here today.

We will have another community advisory meeting in three months.

You'll receive the announcement, but after this, we will be sending out the materials.

We'll send you a link to this PowerPoint and the video so you can share with your communities.

You have our email address that's in the chat, how to reach out to us in the interim.

And we also have a newsletter coming out next month.

So please keep in touch.

Keep the conversation going between now and the next community advisory group meeting.