At the forefront is the Metro Rail’s Silver Line extension through Tyson’s Corner to Dulles Airport; 20 years in the making, and delayed incessantly by local interest groups protecting the environment, the view, the public interest, or the spotted owl. The project is now “on-track” with federal and local funding, and within a few years, commuters will finally be able to go from Capitol Hill to Dulles Airport - and beyond to Leesburg, at high speed and low cost; commuters can traverse the area to the major employment centers of the region, and the vehicular traffic will be cut by half - or more, reducing fossil fuel consumption - and eliminating billions of dollars worth of new road construction and repairs.
Fairfax County is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, with an extensive and well-designed highway systems designed with and underwritten by the Virginia Department of Transportation. The recently completed Springfield Interchange is perhaps the most complex highway nexus in the world, completed in record time. On the Virginia side of the Wilson Bridge is another nexus of high-speed, complex convergences which promise to reduce congestion on one of the most heavily traveled roads in the country. With myriad fly-overs and multi-road merge points of these two intersections, we witness highway engineering at its best.
