Skip to main content

Alexandria and Metro breaking ground for Potomac Yard Metro

Construction for the Potomac Yard Metro Station is already underway. (WTOP/Max Smith)

After years of waiting (and months after work actually began), Virginia, Alexandria, and Metro officials are holding a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday afternoon for the new Potomac Yard Metro Station.

The station behind the current strip mall has been long planned to improve access and drive development in the area.

With the announcement last year of Amazon-related plans for a Virginia Tech campus near the station, additional pieces of those development plans came together.

The station is projected to open in spring 2022. The city and Metro are still working on design plans for one of the entrances that was cut to shave costs.

The station is on the Blue and Yellow lines between the Braddock Road and Reagan National Airport stations.

The groundbreaking was scheduled after final environmental approvals and permits were approved earlier this fall that officially allow construction to continue into the next phases.

The station is projected to open in spring 2022. (WTOP/Max Smith)

Metro and IndyCar team up for a busy weekend of Freedom 250 Grand Prix events

No, you weren't hallucinating Thursday morning — that was an IndyCar being pulled along the Metro tracks through a portion of D.C. It was part of a promotion between the Freedom 250 Grand Prix and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to remind people that the best way to navigate the expected huge crowds this weekend is to take Metro. "Even IndyCar knows the fastest way to get around is actually on Metro," said Randy Clarke, the transit agency's general manager and CEO. "We're really excited about this, and this car was a really kind of fun way to show a different way that people can see the Metro system, and we're having a little fun." The IndyCar, described as a work car that will not run in any of the races scheduled over the weekend, was fastened aboard a flat-bed train car and pulled along the yellow line, beginning at the King Street station up to the Mount Vernon station then back south to the L'Enfant Plaza station. Metro riders gawked at the multicolored, low-profile racecar as the train paused at L'Enfant for a photo op.
Read Next Story