rodmanlama

If by the current end stop you mean Wiehle Avenue (the end of the first phase of the project) then I believe the plan as of right now is to truncate the existing bus service to West Falls Church at Wiehle and drop passengers off there instead. As far as bringing the station to the terminal in the future, I think that ship has sailed. It would be prohibitively expensive to rebuild the terminal alignment as most of it right now is supposed to be on aerial guideway. The old tunnel alignments were supposed to follow a similar path meaning that in the future if you wanted to put something underground closer to the terminal it would involve a service outage for a long period of time while the foundations for the proposed piers are removed.

If you mean the airport station on phase two, then the answer to your question is the existing pedestrian tunnel underneath the hourly lot bowl in front of the terminal. The station will have elevators and escalators that will tie into that tunnel allowing access to the terminal.

_________________
DCA Writer:
As far as C/D vs. E/F goes, the construction of a new Tier II would involve the extension of the west APM tunnels to serve the new concourse D. This would significantly add to the cost of the project.

For a new Tier III, the station has been excavated below grade (a separate station from the existing one for C currently in service). If you look at satellite photos you can actually see a building above the current hole in the ground. It isn't finished out with Fire Protection or any other subsystems, thats why I refer to it as a shell. If you somehow got to ride the APM past where it ends at C right now, you'd pass through it on the way to the maintenance facility at the south end of the terminal area.

_________________

Regarding Landside connectivity, MWAA has reserved space for a possible landside APM. I'm not saying they have any active plans to build one, but they have a free envelope infront of the terminal and in the surrounding areas if they chose to build one, say out to the employee lot or the rental car facilities. As far as one for the IAB goes, I don't know what the deal is on that. I'll have to ask my buddy some questions, but I do know that they have some plans that might be a wee bit different from the existing master plan that nobody wants to confirm or deny if you catch my drift.

DeafFlyer

Construction has not yet started on Phase 2. It would be great if it is finished by 2018, but I suspect that it will be later.

paytonc

@rodmanlama: Welcome to FlyerTalk! I've scoured (to no avail) MWAA capital budget docs in search of evidence that Tier II had not been forgotten about, so thanks for the update and reassurance in that regard.

Fairfax Connector route 981 will connect Reston-Wiehle to IAD, as will MWAA's Washington Flyer, and a potential new WMATA bus service that could replace the 5A after 2014. Truncating the routes to Reston-Wiehle means a shorter trip, which means that the same number of buses can serve the route more frequently.

flyer703

Anyone know the status of the planned 30L/12R ?

rodmanlama

I haven't heard anything about the new x-wind runway other than that tree clearing is currently in progress within the runway and associated taxiways new footprint. I don't think MWAA will build it until PAX levels come back up, because they are pretty stagnant right now and there isn't enough demand to justify the investment when they are doing fine with what they have right now. That's what I've heard from people there. I'll ask around as see if there is anything more up to date.

DCA writer

The Phase 2 contract has been signed and MWAA issued the "notice to proceed" to the contractors on the 9th, but it looks like it will be several months before you see concrete being poured.

That could have happened earlier, except Governor McDonnell and then many of the Loudoun County supervisors had to keep hemming and hawing over things like the makeup of the MWAA's board and whether the Phase 2 contractors should negotiate a project labor agreement with unions. (I'm sure this was all kinds of fun for rodmanlama and co.)

As for the IAD Metro station itself, WMATA's single best amateur historian found a set of renderings of it last year. I like it--I think I'll enjoy seeing Saarinen's architecture swoop into view from the elevated track.

(I came across that link in Railroad.net's forum on Dulles Metro construction, where that guy posts a hundred or so new photos of Silver Line progress every month or so and you can pick up other tidbits about the state of the project.)

The earlier plan had called for a subway station, but not right underneath the main terminal. It would have been underneath the parking lot, a little outside of the bus lanes. I'm fine with losing that.

rodmanlama

Clark, the main contractor for the second phase, will be out there by the beginning of next month to begin more detailed core drillings by all foundation areas for the piers of the guideway segment of the airport alignment. Thats the first sign of construction. Then there will be utility relocation along the DIAAH and Autopilot drive, as well as other areas. It'll speed up quite quick.

halls120

An underground terminal would have added massive additional costs to the project, which is why it was wisely shelved.

drewguy

Explanation here:

http://www.mwaa.com/3785.htm

Some debate here:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/...und-at-dulles/

SandBoxJohn

New here. Found this thread among the referring URLs for my cambronj.blogspot.com pages.

I like to consider myself the single most authoritative individual on all things WMATA metrorail not employed by the transit agency posting in various forum on the internet.

My knowledge on metrorail goes beck to the early 1970s when I aided then Director of Community Services Cody Cody Phanstiehl at WMATA conducting walking tours of the construction. I have walked roughly 1/2 of the system during its construction. Road a bicycle through the Potomac river tunnels.

When the Area Regional System plan was adopted in 1968 there were line on the map labeled future. One of those lines branched from the Orange line just west of where the Dulles Connector Road connects to VA I-66.

The present Silver line project materialized out of several rail transit proposals made back in the late 1990s. The line would have never received federal approval had the line not passed through Tysons Corner, (not enough boardings generated to justify the capital costs). The construction of Phase I was partly funded with federal money. The construction of Phase II will be paid for with local funding only. Most of the local funding is coming from Dulles Toll Road revenue and special commercial taxing district property tax revenue. MWAA contribution is a little over 4 percent of the $5.25 billion total cost.

To be precise the center line of the station would have been at the point where the 2 pedestrian tunnels interest with the tunnel to Garage 1 under the atrium in front main terminal. The metrorail station entrance would have been on the right as one faced north.

Plans, sections and elevations of the station in subway in front of the main terminal can be see at:
FEIS Volume V Chapter 4 – Dulles Airport (3.29 MB PDF file)

Plans, sections and elevations for the elevated station on the south side of Garage 1 can be seen at:
Dulles - Public RFP documents > Shared Documents > 04 PE Drawings > PE Drawings, Volume 7 Part 2 - Airport Segment - NGA (Feb. 2012) (32.9 MB PDF file).

The entrance to the elevated station will be on the left between the end of moving walkway and the elevators up to Garage 1 as one faces north.

John in the sand box of Maryland's eastern shore.

DCA writer

Welcome, John! Good to have you here.

SandBoxJohn

I forgot to provide the links to the essays and pictures of Phase I published sense construction began:

Introduction
DCMP 2009 04 18
DCMP 2009 08 02
DCMP 2010 01 02
DCMP 2010 05 07
DCMP 2010 06 23
DCMP 2010 10 23
DCMP 2011 01 15
DCMP 2011 05 07
DCMP 2011 07 27
DCMP 2011 10 15
DCMP 2012 04 15
DCMP Airport Station Rendering that DCA writer referred to.
DCMP 2012 06 23
DCMP 2012 09 08
DCMP 2012 11 17
VDoT Aerial Photos
VDoT Aerial Photos 10-16-2012
DCMP 2013 02 10
DCMP 2013 04 07
DCMP 2013 06 22 Post that should be of most interest here as it has before pictures the alignment on the airport property.
DCMP 2013 09 15

When construction begins on Phase II next year, you can expect to see essays and pictures of the activities at the airport.

John in the sand box of Maryland's eastern shore.

paytonc

From http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...smisek-393395/

“We are keenly interested in improving, what I would call, the mature facilities that we operate out of here today,” says Smisek. “That said, we need to work with our good partners at MWAA to find a way that we can improve the facilities here at a cost that we can afford and a cost that will not destroy the profitability of the hub.”

gailwynand

In other words, $misek wants to stiff taxpayers with the bill. Big surprise.

gnaget

Comparing WFC to IAD vs. Wiehle to IAD by non-stop bus. The first is about 20 min and the latter maybe 10 min. What's the metro ride from EFC to Wiehle?
http://planitmetro.com/2013/09/20/wh...e-silver-line/

22 minutes! So it's 32 min travel time from EFC (plus connection). Currently it's 3 min EFC to WFC plus 20 min to IAD = 23 min (plus connection).

They better run the buses every 15 min in future to make up for the longer travel time.

A big question is whether the bus will have direct ramp on and off the Access Rd to Wiehle station like at WFC. Otherwise add another 10-15 min during ex-urban hellish rush hour.

It's pretty lousy for people living near WFC. They would have to back track one stop, two changes so maybe 20 min longer trip!