BearX220

Yes, but it's the earliest (approx. 600pm) departure, which gets you to LHR at the don't-wanna-be-there-yet hour of 630am. I am actually flying BA IAD-LHR on this next trip and paused over the A380 option when booking, but decided schedule is a bigger factor and booked the later BA 777.

PoincianaKings

Ahh but the 'don't-wanna-be-there-yet" flight is well timed for connections across Europe. For example you could be in TLS (just) by 10am local. It is also good for those flying in to go straight into the office.

DCA writer

For only the second time in the last 40 or so opportunities, a bus was pulling up just as I walked out of the main terminal: Fairfax Connector's 983 IAD-Wiehle Ave. Metro service. So I had to give it a try.

(This timing was totally luck, since Fairfax Connector can't be bothered to provide real-time bus-arrival estimates.)

Starting at just before 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, the 983 bus took 30 minutes to go from IAD to Metro. Most of that time was eaten up by stops along the way, but we also lost 5 minutes at Reston Town Center when the driver got out and stretched (really) before standing around for a few minutes. We also made one more loop of the Herndon-Monroe bus station than seemed strictly necessary.

BearX220

That would drive me crazy. I've told the story previously on FT of riding the 5A from Rosslyn to IAD one quiet Saturday morning -- no traffic or weather -- the bus showed up at Rosslyn 10 or 15 minutes late, and the driver promptly trotted into the McDonald's across the street while shouting at the queue to go ahead and get on, "It's $6, but if y'all ain't got it, don't sweat it!"... then we sat on the bus (some having paid, some having dodged it, European tourists totally flummoxed) while she got her Egg McMuffins, returned, and pulled out -- now 25 minutes late -- weaving down I-66 eating her breakfast with crumbs and wrappers and fragments of egg flying.

That was the last time I rode the 5A.

DCA writer

Wow. Never saw that happen, but there was the time when the 5A wasn't showing up at all on NextBus before it pulled up in front of IAD. I asked the driver, and he just said "I don't know." Dude, at least check to see if you switched on the GPS transponder!

About our layover at Reston, it could have been because we didn't hit any traffic and would have arrived at the next stops too early. It wasn't like the driver was doing anything beyond his little seventh-inning stretch.

arlflyer

I just booked this flight last week for a leisure trip because it would give us an opportunity for a 14 hour layover in London before connecting onward. Enough time to see a few things in the city.

BearX220

Did the Silver Line-to-Wiehle-to-Washington Flyer trek out to IAD about a week ago. Not so bad, but compared to the old WFC-Washington Flyer route it's really a wash.

Pros:

Nice new under-cover bus depot at Wiehle; you can wait out of the rain.
You do not need to bring $5 in exact change for the bus; you pay on arrival at IAD at the same old Washington Flyer operations desk, and they will take a credit card or make change.
Silver Line gets you closer to the airport than WFC.

Cons:

First leg of the bus route from Wiehle to IAD is in non-toll road traffic lanes, you can easily get bogged down in rush hour volume. Old bus from WFC did not have this problem.
The new bus is less nice -- a sort of hopped-up transit bus, but not nearly as comfortable as the old WFC bus, which were Trailways-type Eagles IIRC.
Cheaper bus ($5 versus $10 before) but more expensive Metro ride (I believe my peak journey from Farragut North was > $5.00).

Not much in it really. Made it from Farragut Square to the IAD security checkpoint in about 1:10. That included 15 minutes standing around at the Wiehle bus center waiting for a bus. No faster than the old way unless you just missed a bus out of WFC.

DeafFlyer

I was sitting in the cell phone lot tonight and noticed new, what looked like, supports for a future bridge. Are those for the Silver Line?

DCA writer

Exactly. Sand Box John has been chronicling the progress of construction with a new batch of photos every other month or so, and the latest set features those columns for the aerial track.

SandBoxJohn

DCA writer
Exactly. Sand Box John has been chronicling the progress of construction with a new batch of photos every other month or so, and the latest set features those columns for the aerial track.


Thank you DCA writer for posting the link.

My apologies folks for forgetting to post my 10 13 2014 Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project progress update essay and pictures here.

gnaget

I took the metro to IAD for kicks. Well first I took Uber to EFC, which cost $15. (I could have taken a bus but they seem unreliable and only come once an hour.)

What surprised was that the 23 min ride according to the timetable took about 16 min. I took a 15:13 or 14 train and pulled into Wiehle at 15:29. I then thought that if I rushed over to the bus then I could catch the :30 if it was slow departing. But it was quite far and I figured that I missed it, but then after the last stragglers got on around :37 the bus departed! The timetable shows every 15 minutes at that hour with the next departure at :45. So, was I on a delayed :30 or early departure :45? It would really make sense if they coordinated with metro, which they appear to be doing.

Why does the timetable show such a slow travel time? Is there going to be another station between Spring Hill and Wiehle in the future? But that's not going to slow it down by 7 minutes.

I was at the Lufthansa lounge by 16:04.

DCA writer

The Silver Line's planners had contemplated adding a station at Wolf Trap, then considered prepping the line for an infill station there. But eventually, my understanding was that they had to scale that back to simply keeping the tracks flat and straight there and leaving any other work for a future station to a budget cycle far in the future.

gnaget

Yes, it appears that they removed it to save money. It seems stupid to have a 6 mile stretch with no station.

I am still quite puzzled why my journey was 6-7 minutes faster (from EFC) than advertised by the timetable. Is this normal?

14940674

The ridership potential of the area did not justify a station at the time of construction, but they did make a provision for a Wolf Trap station in the future.

Ask GGW: Why is there no Silver Line station at Wolf Trap?

SandBoxJohn

There were no plans to place a station at Wolf Trap in either the Draft Environmental Impact Statement or the Final Environmental Impact Statement. There were plans to construct provisions for a future station at Wolf Trap in Final Environmental Impact Statement. The provisions consisted of a 650' long tangent on a .035 percent westerly descending grade beginning roughly 400' west of the Trap Road overpass to allow the construction of a future twin platform station. The provision were removed in the Preliminary Engineering Design Refinements Environmental Assessment as part of the cost cutting to get federal approval for the project and matching federal grant money.

The provision is shown on pages 47 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement Volume IV Chapter 3 – Plan and Profile (54.4 MB PDF file).

The running time discrepancy is likely because trains are being run at higher speeds to increase fleet utilization.