Metro leaders weigh costly expansion, pointing to region's growth
By Justin George
Washington Post
July 13, 2023
"Transit leaders said Thursday they are convinced that now is the time to plan a major Metrorail expansion that could include stations in Georgetown and National Harbor, even as they urgently lobby local leaders and the federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars to stave off layoffs and severe service cuts by next summer.
"It is responsible for us to be planning for the future and sharing with the region what's possible and what benefit can come from enhancing the system, and that's what this is really all about," Metro board member Matthew F. Letourneau said at a board meeting Thursday. "But I really can't say loudly enough that this is a planning exercise. This is a planning document. It is not an immediate plan."
Board members reviewed several early proposals for service expansions, most of which transit agency planners said would take "decades" to plan, fund and build. The proposals are primarily aimed at resolving a lack of tunnel capacity between Foggy Bottom in D.C. and Rosslyn in Virginia. Metro officials said growth around stations that use the tunnel is projected to create crowding problems — something that had been occurring before the pandemic..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/trans...getown-tunnel/