Is reverse VRE train service to Manassas in the future? Maybe by 2040 or sooner

The Virginia Railway Express has grown since its inception in the early 1990s.

Today it carries more than 18,000 passenger trips. Trains on the system’s Fredericksburg and Manassas lines are packed with commuters each weekday, headed from the Virginia exurbs to employment centers in Alexandria, and in Washington, D.C.

A new Spotsylvania station opens on the Fredericksburg line today. It’s the first expansion of the system since VRE opened in 1992.

And a study is underway that will tell VRE how much it will cost, and what will be the impacts to the environment and surrounding area if its Manassas line is extended to Gainesville and Haymarket.

The extension is part of VRE’s 2040 System Plan — a blueprint for how Virginia’s only commuter railroad will grow over the next 25 years. It includes plans, in the near term, to extend the length of trains to accommodate more riders and expand parking at stations.

Between 2021 and 2040, VRE wants to add reverse service to growing employment centers like Quantico, Fort Belvoir, and near Manassas at Innovation Park at the George Mason University Technolgy Campus. Up two two trains per hour would leave Washington and travel to Virginia, according to the plan.

Reverse VRE service is something for which riders have long asked. Residents and officials continue to cry for a Metro rail extension to Woodbridge that would provide more frequent rail service to and from Washington.

Today, when morning VRE trains reach their final stop in Washington, locomotives and cars are parked until needed again for afternoon service.

Reverse VRE service would have positive effects for businesses in the region as they would now have the ability to draw from a workforce that would commute from Washington and Maryland. Reverse service could also be a good thing for tourism.

“When you think about the 4th of July here in Manassas, we’ve got 70,000 people in town, and the option for them to take a train would save them the trouble of parking and navigating closed streets, and it could make more people inclined to come and visit,” said Manassas Economic Development Director Patrick Small.

Tourists in Washington could also hop a train to the Civil War history capital, visit the city museum, and then stroll downtown shops and restaurants, he added.

VRE is a tool in an overall package Small uses when trying to talk CEOs into locating or relocating their businesses to the city. Manassas has two VRE stations, and they can be conveniently used by executives who need to get to Arlington or Washington for a morning meeting and back again.

If a VRE station is going to be built at Innovation Park — one of three potential stations on an extension of the Manassas line to Haymarket and Gainesville — the trains are going have to come closer to the campus and businesses there.

The extension would operate on Norfolk-Southern’s B-line, used today by freight trains. The B line spurs off the Norfolk-Southern main line at Wellington Road in Manassas and heads west.

 The B line runs near Innovation Park, but the tracks are located outside what is considered by transit planning professionals and a comfortable walking distance for riders leaving the train station to their final destinations in the office, the classroom, or the gym.

“We’ve asked VRE to considering creating a loop where the train tracks would run into Innovation Park to allow for easier pedestrian access, if a station is built. The track is too far north of where you would ideally would like it to be if a station were to be built there today, and that becomes a deterrent for people,” said Rick Canizales, with the Prince William County Transportation Office.

If you drew a concentric circle around a new VRE station, people would be willing to walk about a half a mile distance away from the station. Not much further.

The frequency of the reverse train service also matters.

“If the reverse commute happens, it’s going to take a while to build,” added Canizales. “Public transit service is built on accessibility, frequency, and reliability. It’s that’s not there immediately, it’s going to take a while to build it up.”

Manassas will also begin development of its Gateway project — a mixed use center to include office, retail, a hotel, and homes near Innovation Park. Shuttle services could be started to get visitors or employees to and from an Innovation Station, or an existing VRE end-line station at Broad Run, at the Manassas Regional Airport.

Part of the Haymarket – Gainesville extension study will examine what to do with the Broad Run station. If the Manassas line is extended more train storage will be needed in the area, and the Broad Run station could be relocated or closed, forcing riders to use a new station at Innovation Park.

The Manassas Regional Airport is one of three major employment hubs in Manassas, to include Novant Prince William Hospital, Micron, and the BAE complex on Wellington Road.

“It would be a shame of workers couldn’t use a reverse train to get to the airport,” said Small.