STAFFORD, Va. — At a meeting that drew just three participants concerned about the future of Virginia’s only commuter railroad, higher fares, wifi, and trains packed with riders were top of mind issues.
Virginia Railway Express held the public meeting in advance of a proposed 4% fare hike that could take effect July 1. With it, the cost of single ride tickets and monthly passes would go up.
But crowded rail cars were on the minds of some who spoke, especially the cars on VRE’s morning express train 300 which leaves Fredericksburg at 5:05 a.m. on weekdays, serves stops in Stafford County and the Woodbridge VRE station, but doesn’t stop again until Alexandria. Some mornings the train is standing room only by the time it reaches stops in Stafford County, said Will Morrison of Falmouth.
VRE stores trains after their morning runs at Washington’s Union Station. With little additional storage room at the busy rail hub, adding more trains, or changing the number of rail cars per train to ease capacity, is not an option any time soon.
“If we could show you what a Tetris puzzle we have in the storage yard at Washington Union, we have to fit so many train sets into the storage yard…if it were a matter of changing around some trains, or adding some cars to different ones, we would have done that already,” said VRE Deputy CEO Richard Dalton.
Riders also told VRE’s top brass that Slug lines – where occupants ride in vehicles of three or more for free on Virginia’s 495 Express Lanes and I-95’s HOV lanes — is becoming a faster, more attractive option than the train. The carpool lanes are being expanded on I-95 as the HOV lanes from Dumfries to Edsall Road in Alexandria are being converted to HOV/toll lanes and extended south to Stafford County.
But there are the VRE faithful who ride religiously, like Roderick Burke of Stafford who pays out of pocket $89 per month to ride at least three times per week, and has an employer that doesn’t cover the full cost of his VRE ride as many federal agencies do.
Roderick, who also slugs some days, calls his time on the train relaxing. But he would like to see wireless internet services, or wifi, added to VRE so he could pop open his laptop and get more work done.
Wireless access on VRE has been talked about for years, but it’s a service VRE Chief Doug Allen said hasn’t been rolled out yet because the connection was not robust enough. Additionally, when wireless service does come to VRE, the transit agency would like to spend $1.2 million to install wireless services on all of their rail cars.
