Ballston and the Silver Line: A Big Opportunity

July 30th, 2014

This is a guest from Paul Mackie, communications director at Mobility Lab.

A new short video by Mobility Lab details the economic benefits that Ballston stands to reap from this week’s opening of Metro’s Silver Line.

In the video, Ballston Business Improvement District CEO Tina Leone says, “We see the Silver Line as making Ballston the center of the universe. It makes everything even better here. We already have a very active Metro stop, with 26,000 trips per day. We see that growing to 38,000 trips per day along with the Silver Line by 2020. So that’s coming very, very fast.”

Travelling out from downtown D.C., Ballston is on the Orange Line one stop before the Silver Line branches off to its five new stations.

Leone mentions other ways that Ballston is adapting to the buzz around the introduction of the Silver Line.

Public transportation options are crucial to a growing population:

“We already have a lot of other infrastructure in place to help out as well so people don’t need a car here. We have the Metro and ART buses. We have Capital Bikeshare. Because of our demographic, we’re looking into scootershare. We’re looking for more options here because the population is going to grow by about 20 percent by 2020.”

The Silver Line is a huge attraction for companies:

“What’s really cool about it is 42 percent of the people who live here are young, hip, smart, athletic … It’s a very exciting place to be. Ballston right now is a braintrust for research and development organizations and educational institutions and we see that continuing to grow. I think the Silver Line contributing the ease of access to Ballston and beyond is a huge attraction for companies and for people to live here.”

One of the largest public infrastructure projects in the country, Metro’s Silver Line will eventually extend rail service out to Dulles International Airport when the second phase is completed, which is anticipated to happen in 2018.

Paul Mackie is communications director at Mobility Lab, a research-and-development think tank based in Arlington, Virginia that focuses nationally and internationally on “transportation demand management – moving people instead of cars.”

Related Posts:

Comments are closed.