A proposed Metrorail station at Potomac Yard is moving a step forward as Alexandria officials seek to dedicate $1.5 million to study if they should pursue the project.
On Thursday, Alexandria plans to ask Metro to set aside the money from the city’s funding to the transit agency. It’s the first money to be attached to the idea of building a station on the Yellow and Blue lines between the stations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Braddock Road. But the project still would be years away.
And $1.5 million would not go far in paying for a Metrorail station that is projected to cost up to $125 million in current dollars. Instead, it would be slated to pay for early costs to assess engineering of potential sites.
“We need to do the study to find out of it works,” said Faroll Hamer, director of Alexandria’s Planning and Zoning Department.
The Blue and Yellow lines were built so that a Metro station could be added at Potomac Yard. And now, the extensive freight rail yard that had dominated the area for nearly a century is being developed into what has become a popular and growing area for shopping, housing and office space.
Still, Hamer said, a Metro station could be five to 20 years away.
“A lot of it frankly depends on the market because if no one is going to build new buildings, we aren’t going to need a station there,” she said.
The station would give people in the area an alternative to driving cars, relieving overall road congestion, she said. “It improves everybody’s quality of life.”
Metro last opened new stations in 2004. But it has opened only one other “infill” station between existing stops, said Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel. Such stations can be easier to build because the rails already exist.
It is not clear, however, how the station would be funded. In the case of the Red Line’s New York Avenue station, which opened in November 2004, private landowners created a special taxing district to raise $25 million, Taubenkibel said, while the District added $60 million and federal officials paid $25 million.
Hamer said Metro didn’t have the money it used to, so city officials have been told they would need to fund a portion of it.
Still, the Alexandria City Council would have to vote on any proposal for the station, which Hamer said likely wouldn’t occur until at least late 2009. But if the Metro money were approved, the study could begin as early as next month.
