Several Fairfax Connector bus routes will be moved at the end of the month to accommodate construction on the first phase of the Dulles Metrorail extension.
In two weeks, Fairfax Connector users can no longer ride directly from the Reston East Park-and-Ride Lot to the Pentagon or Crystal City. Instead routes 595 and 597 will be moved to the parking lot at Sunset Hills Road and Wiehle Avenue.
And a quarter of the 820 parking spaces at the Reston East lot — which were already at full capacity — won’t be available starting Nov. 28.
The changes are necessitated by work on the Wiehle Avenue parking garage, which will be paired with the last of five stops along the first phase of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail extension. A seven-level parking garage, coupled with mixed-use development above the facility, is expected to open in late 2013.
To make up for the lost service, officials will double the number of trips between the park-and-ride lot at Reston Parkway and Fox Mill Road and the West Falls Church Metro Station.
Transportation officials say the lots in north and south Reston have enough capacity to handle the expected migration of park and riders. And transportation officials hope it will prepare the public for the elimination of the East Reston lot next year.
Construction will completely close that lot in February, and a new park and ride facility will open at Sunset Hills Road and Town Center Parkway to take its place.
Fairfax County officials say the changes will cost more than $220,000 for the rest of this fiscal year and $381,000 annually in coming years.
Bus service was already cut in Fairfax this year, as routes were slashed and weekend and night trips reduced to help close the county’s budget shortfall. In addition, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority halted millions of dollars formerly reserved for the county’s express bus service in the Dulles corridor.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is expected to sign off on the new routes Tuesday.
