Here’s a snapshot of how the Silver Line has impacted the Metrorail system and Tysons commuters

When Metrorail’s Silver Line opened in 2014, officials had high hopes for its ridership numbers. Though it ultimately did not meet those expectations, it fared better than other lines that have lost ridership since the Silver Line’s launch.

But to understand the Silver Line’s true effect on the region, and particularly the Tysons communities it serves, we must first dissect its complicated impact on the entire Metrorail system.

The Silver Line has caused some riders to change their routes and others to leave Metrorail entirely

Not every Silver Line rider is a new Metrorail customer. Once it opened, some Orange Line riders who frequented the Vienna, Dunn Loring, and West Falls Church stations switched to using the Silver Line for convenience. For instance, the West Falls Church station on the Orange Line fell from 10,100 weekday entries in 2013 to below 3,000 from 2015 onward as some riders likely opted into a Silver Line station instead.

In order to make room for Silver Line trains to go through the Rosslyn tunnel, the frequency of Orange Line service west of the East Falls Church station and east of Stadium Armory station (and for the Blue Line, south of Rosslyn station) had to be reduced. Because of this, some Orange Line riders who could not easily switch to the Silver Line abandoned the system altogether.

Ridership for Blue Line stations south of Rosslyn and Orange Line stations east of Stadium Armory — the stations where train frequency has been reduced but the Silver Line isn’t a potential alternative — has reduced 21% relative since 2013, while Metrorail ridership as a whole has dropped by 11%.

Though WMATA has proposed a second Rosslyn station to make increased Blue Line service feasible, any major improvements are tentative and far off.

The chart below shows the average daily weekday ridership at the Silver Line stations; the average daily weekday ridership at Orange and Blue Line stations where service has been reduced; and ridership at all other stations.

The Silver Line has failed to reach projections

As ridership plummeted because of coronavirus-related shutdowns in April, WMATA officials announced they were shutting down Silver Line rail service for the summer. They planned to use this time to complete maintenance projects on the line, even as business leaders said that the shutdown will be a severe blow to Tysons’ economic recovery.

Prior to the shutdown, Silver Line ridership had been increasing steadily. It’s risen nearly 13% from 2015 through 2019 as new jobs and residents have moved into areas served by these stations.

The chart below shows ridership for the five new Silver Line stations — McLean, Tysons Corner, Greensboro, Spring Hill, and Wiehle-Reston East — over time, as measured by average daily entries on weekdays. The 2014 average reflects data only from August through December since the stations weren’t open earlier in the year.

Despite the upward trajectory, ridership levels remain well below the estimates developed by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). In 2004, the FTA published the final environmental impact statement for the Silver Line. At that time, the agency estimated that the new Silver Line stations would see average weekday ridership of 24,600 per day in its first year of service and rising thereafter. The actual first-year ridership was less than 15,000 per day, and ridership remains well below the FTA estimate today.

To be fair, overestimating transit ridership ahead of project construction is not uncommon. In a study of transportation projects across 20 countries, planning professor Bent Flyvbjerg finds that ridership is overestimated for 90% of rail projects and that the average estimate is about double actual ridership. By this measure, the FTA’s Silver Line ridership forecast was slightly better than forecasts for other transit systems.

However, the failure of the Silver Line to achieve the FTA’s ridership estimates is notable because the agency’s forecast did not rely on Fairfax County, which is home to all five existing stations, to make zoning or infrastructure changes that would facilitate more ridership relative to the 2004 baseline.

In 2010, county officials drastically upzoned land surrounding the four stations located in Tysons, resulting in thousands of new housing units and millions of square feet of new office space with more of both on the way. Housing construction and job growth in the area should have increased ridership relative to what could have been expected in 2004.

WMATA developed a separate, more recent, analysis of ridership. As of 2015, the WMATA model estimated that 11,000 riders combined could be expected each weekday at the four Tysons stations given Tysons’ density of jobs and housing. But in reality, the stations saw fewer than 9,000 weekday riders in 2019 in spite of a rise in job and housing density around the stations since the 2015 study.

Although Fairfax County policymakers have made efforts to improve walking and biking access to the Tysons stations, the WMATA analysis blames low ridership on Tysons’ unappealing pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.

Fourteen Capital Bikeshare stations have been installed in Tysons, including at least one within two blocks of each Metro station. There are new crosswalks and pedestrian signals in place on routes 7 and 123, and further improvements for pedestrians and cyclists improvements are on the way. However, the major arterial roads on which all of the stations are built present the most fundamental challenge. In order to create safe and desirable walking and cycling routes to the stations, policy makers would have to make major infrastructure changes. So far, no state or local politicians have committed to do so.

As the Silver Line shutdown is slated to end on August 16, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding what will happen to Silver Line ridership. Some forecast that transit ridership across the country will take a big hit as more office staffers work from home and other riders look for transit alternatives for health reasons (even though some data indicate otherwise).

However, Silver Line ridership will likely get a boost as new buildings continue filling up in Tysons. Phase 2 of the Silver Line, now under construction, will extend the line further out to Dulles. The extension may bring in additional riders from Fairfax and Loudoun counties who will use the new stations to reach jobs and retail in Tysons.