No action on VRE Board pauses VRE extension project

WOODBRIDGE, Va. — Despite the majority of the Virginia Railway Express Board leaning toward killing a proposed commuter rail extension to Haymarket, Chairman Gary Skinner decided not to take a vote on the matter.

Skinner instead took an informal poll of Board members Friday morning on whether to continue studying an 11-mile expansion of VRE service from Manassas to Gainesville and Haymarket or to adopt an alternative by relocating the railroad’s Broad Run station about a mile east, closer to Manassas City.

“You can take back to your Board tell them the majority of the [VRE Operations] Board sits on the Broad Run extension,” Skinner told fellow Board member and Prince William County Supervisor Marty Nohe.

Nohe said he spoke for his Board, the Prince William Board of Supervisors who say they need more time to review what development could someday be built in the areas of Innovation Park outside Manassas, in Gainesville, and Haymarket.

Relocating the Broad Run Station would increase ridership. But an extension to Gainesville could increase economic development opportunities in Prince William County.

“Should we relocate Broad Run? This is not the only question we on the Board of Supervisors are going to ask,” said Nohe. “It’s been suggested that an extension to Innovation [Park] or Haymarket or Gainesville would have, on balance, a bigger impact on county’s econmic development, and that is a factor we need to take into consideration.”

The Broad Run relocation alternative, recommended by VRE staff and placed on today’s Operations Board agenda for a vote, would move the station at the Manassas Regional Airport to the area near Godwin Drive and Route 28.

The old station and its parking lot would be replaced by an expanded rail storage yard, which would allow VRE to park and operate 22 trains on the Manassas line — up from the today’s 16-train operation.

If VRE is extended to Gainesville, but not Haymarket, the Broad Run Station would remain in its current location. A new rail storage yard could be built near Innovation Park. Doing both — relocating Broad Run and extending VRE to Gainesville — is not expected to grow ridership.

“Building new stations doesn’t grow ridership. Running more trains does because you open up more seats and attract new riders,” added Nohe.

Nohe hopes the Prince William County Board of Supervisors will weigh its options and make a decision by early January, in time for the next VRE Operations Board meeting.

Putting more trains on the Manassas line will open up seats for commuters in Fairfax County whom today may choose not to use VRE because trains are full by the time they at the Burke Station.

“In Fairfax, we’re built out and we’re ready to go. The train is leaving the station, and we need to make a decision now,” said John Cook, a Fairfax County Supervisor who serves on the VRE Board.

A VRE study found that an extension to Gainesville or Haymarket would not attract as many riders between now and 2040 as originally anticipated. Extending VRE to Haymarket could cost as much as 4660, million, about $40,000 per new rider. The project would not be eligible for federal funding as transit officials had hoped.

“We don’t believe, given the numbers, that we have the extension would be eligible for federal funding, and that was a key assumption of our plan,” said VRE’s Christine Hoffner, who is leading the Gainesville-Haymarket Extension Study.