If Arlington had built the Orange Line stations in the median of I-66, as Fairfax did, the county today would look very different. Leaders had to push very hard for closely-spaced stations on the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

At the end, Jay Ricks talks about funding becoming available for Virginia Square because Georgetown rejected a station. However, we learned from Zachary Schrag that this isn’t true. What really happened?

I emailed Dr. Schrag, who explained that Ricks is probably thinking of the Oklahoma Avenue station instead. According to Schrag, around 1971 there was a proposal to cut the Virginia Square station. “Also on the table at that time was the Oklahoma Avenue station in D.C., which was the only station removed from the 1968 Adopted Regional System in response to community concerns. (Jackson Graham memo of 22 December 1971, Cody Pfanstiehl papers, box 1, folder 5.)”

There was also some debate over whether the Oklahoma Avenue money could go to Arlington or stay in DC. Schrag explained, “As of April 1971, the D.C. government wanted any savings from deleted stations to stay in the jurisdiction, while the WMATA staff wanted funds to go to the system as a whole. ([Jackson] Graham to Board, ‘Paper on Allocation of Costs,’ 8 April 1971., Pfanstiehl papers, box 7, folder 7.)” It sounds like DC lost that battle and Arlington got the money.

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Tagged: arlington, orange line, transit, video, virginia, wmata, zachary schrag

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.