[OhioGuy]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

^^^
Paywall.

Gist?

Below are some snippets from the article. Beyond this, the article covers ridership projections at various potential stations for either a blue line extension or yellow line extension. And it doesn't mention any cost estimate because officials there want to avoid providing estimates at this point to avoid sticker shock.

If Metro can ever extend its service down to Quantico, Prince William County could expect to see a permanent reordering of its development patterns and a major population surge around Woodbridge, according to a new, state-backed study.

It will probably take decades before the region’s elected leaders can ever manage such an expansion for Metro — if they can pull it off at all — but Virginia officials are starting to consider the possibility in earnest for the first time. The state’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation is finalizing the results of a legislatively mandated study that considers just what would happen if Metro extended either its Blue or Yellow line into the southeastern corner of Prince William, presenting preliminary findings to the public Tuesday.

...

Specifically, it suggests that rail service would drive development away from the county’s suburban and rural areas and lead to huge increases in jobs and population around these new transit hubs. Officials stressed that this wouldn’t represent the addition of new residents, per se, but a redistribution of projected growth in the county.

The study examined a host of other factors beyond just development potential, of course — it considers whether a Blue or Yellow line extension would be more effective, whether it would be more cost effective to extend Fairfax’s BRT service or build Metro, even how many riders each option would add to the system. It generally found that the Blue Line extension would add more riders, while the Yellow Line additions would add more residents and jobs, and it found BRT generally competitive with both options.

But all of those considerations are very far off, state officials warned. Metro itself has been clear that it hopes to address its core capacity issues — namely, the crowding of trains moving through the Rosslyn tunnel as it approaches downtown D.C. — before it considers any extension. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is currently showcasing its own ambitious, long-range plans to address the issue, which would require a decades-long, multibillion-dollar effort.

Yet Prince William officials have been adamant about studying these extensions themselves anyway, so they can move forward on expansion plans once Metro solves its Silver-Orange-Blue crowding conundrum.