The master plan for National Harbor includes houses, hotels, restaurants, an outlet mall and resorts that have largely come to fruition since it opened 14 years ago in the middle of a recession. The Metro station in that blueprint has taken a divergent path.
Developers included the station at a time when the transit agency was on stronger footing, hoping a rail connection to the Washington region would boost the fledgling waterfront community. National Harbor has shown it can grow without Metro, but its continued desire for a station will probably be settled during a process beginning in weeks.
“The only important piece we are missing now is Metro,” said developer Jon Peterson, of Fairfax County-based Peterson Companies, which manages National Harbor.
A Metro study on extending rail service recommends expanding the Blue Line to National Harbor and other locations — a pricey proposal that is reviving hopes among residents and community leaders that Metro trains could one day cross the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into southern Prince George’s County. The proposal is geared toward the Washington region’s long-term growth, but under consideration at a time when Metro is weakened by a federal safety probe and pandemic.
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Metro planners sketched a route that would realign the Blue Line from Arlington Cemetery to a second Rosslyn station and continue northeast through a new Potomac River tunnel into Georgetown, then to Union Station. From there, it would extend south to the Navy Yard station, on to National Harbor before crossing the Wilson bridge to Alexandria and north to the Pentagon.
The Wilson bridge, which carries traffic between Prince George’s and Alexandria over the Potomac River, was built to accommodate a Metro line.
The route would add 180,000 new weekday trips, according to pre-pandemic Metro estimates made when the existing rail system was serving four times the passengers it does now. The route would bring rail service to lower-income communities in the District and Prince George’s, as well as to areas where development is booming, such as Buzzard Point and National Harbor.
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The transit agency is taking the National Harbor proposal and five other alternatives to the public for comment this spring. Other options include no changes to the rail system and enhancing bus operations. The Metro board is expected to vote before the end of the year on whether to pursue one or a combination of the alternatives.
Metro this year is also confronting more immediate priorities, as it will probably face years of financial challenges amid steep ridership losses, particularly from its customer base of federal workers who are increasingly working from home. Transit officials say the agency will need to find new passengers or resort to service cuts if ridership doesn’t hit pre-pandemic levels.
Proponents of the proposed National Harbor line take a much longer-term view.
It’s the preferred of six options the Metro board is considering to deal with crowded stations on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines. Trains and stations on the three lines, which share one set of tracks through much of the District, frequently exceeded capacity before the pandemic during peak hours, according to Metro.
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The Blue Line route would connect an area of Prince George’s with few transit options — limited to a handful of bus routes — to the greater Washington area. It also would create an alternative to car travel in an area that suffers from frequent traffic congestion.
“It would be a tremendous amount of relief if folks were able to depend on mass transit,” said Malcolm Augustine, a former member of Metro’s board who represented Prince George’s and is now a state senator.
The downside? It would come with a hefty price tag, costing between $20 billion and $25 billion to build and between $175 million and $200 million annually to operate, according to a Metro report last fall. It’s not clear how the extension would be funded.
By comparison, Congress saved Metro from making draconian service cuts over the past two years with $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money. Metro, with an annual operating budget of about $2 billion, expects to run out of federal money next summer, leaving the transit agency to make up the rest.
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“It’s a big investment, but it is a way for us to be able to continue to grow,” Augustine said. “And now is the time to invest because it takes a long time to build these things.”
Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly said the study is continuing as part of a long-term growth plan.
Some transportation advocates say the time to plan for a Metro extension is now, considering expected growth in the Washington region’s population and Metro’s role in driving investment near rail stations. The proposal, still in its nascent stage, hasn’t sparked any organized opposition.
Residents and community leaders in the National Harbor area have long sought more transit options. Metro added a second bus route to the area five years ago. Buses now connect National Harbor to the Blue and Yellow lines at King Street, about five miles away in Alexandria, and to the Green Line at Southern Avenue, about six miles away near the Prince George’s-D.C. line.
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But for many of the 13,000 people who work at National Harbor, commuting presents a daily challenge. Buses don’t run late enough for the hundreds of workers on night shifts at its eight hotels and more than 40 restaurants. Residents are largely dependent on cars to get around, and visitors — as many as 27 million annually — often complain about the difficulties of getting to Washington’s monuments via transit.
Zeno St. Cyr II, a community activist in the nearby River Bend community, whose home is just outside National Harbor, said a Metro station would fill a gap in transit that many residents have been seeking for years.
“The desire from the community has always been there,” he said. “I more than ever think the moment is now.”
The National Harbor area is expected to continue to grow in the next decade, with new construction planned both in the waterfront district and in nearby neighborhoods. New townhouses and condos are among the priciest in the county, with the highest sale price last year for a penthouse unit that sold for $1.4 million.
About 2,500 people live at National Harbor, which has about 1,500 homes and is still in the building phase with an additional 1,000 units planned, according to the developer. But its population grows significantly during the day, as its workforce and thousands of visitors pour in. Peterson Companies is marketing 1 million square feet for office space, hoping to lure companies to build their headquarters, while a new condo tower is rising and a medical building is about to be completed.
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Will Nuckols, president of one of the homeowners associations at National Harbor, said for many residents, the prospect of a Metro station raises hopes that property values would rise, as it has been the case in other transit-oriented areas. Prince George’s has some of the lowest housing prices in the Washington region.
“It’s been a huge escalation of property values around those areas that we have not experienced in Prince George’s County,” he said.
A decision favoring a rail line extension based on the study would be the start of a long-term project. After settling on a route and getting necessary approvals, which would probably take years, building could then take two decades. Planners say the National Harbor route is the most promising option among the alternatives Metro is considering.
“As evaluated, the new Blue Line to National Harbor would deliver the highest level of benefits,” Metro planners said in the report. The line “would include new rail stations in areas targeted for growth and development, has the greatest impact in terms of expanding access to jobs” and would bring rail to low-income communities, the report said.
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Angie Rodgers, Prince George’s deputy chief administrative officer for economic development, said the county favors any plan that increase transit, especially in southern parts of the county.
“In addition to facilitating access for workers and visitors, transit-oriented development opportunities at future expansion sites will also generate transformative development opportunities that help us diversify our tax base,” Rodgers said in a statement.
Station locations would be determined in the future if the board pursues the project, Metro said. Potential locations in the past have included a site outside the MGM National Harbor casino.
Peterson said his company would work with Metro on selecting a parcel for a station. Despite the transit system’s ridership slump, he said Metro would make National Harbor a more attractive option for companies that desire access to public transportation and would spur more investment in Prince George’s.
“Just look at all the economic development that is happening where they are building the Silver Line extension,” Peterson said. “It’s absolutely amazing and it’s because of the Metro.”
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