Loudoun County, Virginia is getting $4.3 million in federal funds to build walking and biking paths along the wide suburban arterials surrounding its Silver Line Metro stations, tackling a problem the county has faced since the stations opened: the roads leading to them weren't built for anyone on foot.
The county secured the federal Surface Transportation Block Grant to add shared-use paths and sidewalks along five roads in the Ashburn area: Shellhorn Road, Ashburn Village Boulevard, Prentice Drive, Pacific Boulevard, and Loudoun County Parkway. The primary corridor runs along Shellhorn Road from Greenway Corporate Drive to Loudoun Station Drive, putting it squarely between the surrounding office parks and residential neighborhoods and the Ashburn Metro station.
The challenge is one that suburban counties across the country face when transit arrives. The Ashburn area was built up in the 1990s and 2000s around cars, with wide arterials designed for vehicle throughput rather than safe pedestrian or cyclist access. When the Silver Line's Phase 2 extension finally opened in November 2022, after years of construction delays and cost overruns that pushed the total project cost past $6 billion, it delivered world-class rail infrastructure into a landscape where walking to the station could mean navigating roads with no sidewalks and few safe crossings. Loudoun County contributed roughly $330 million to the extension.
Without safe non-motorized connections, Metro stations in car-dependent suburbs tend to function mainly as park-and-ride facilities, which limits ridership and requires expensive structured parking. Ridership at the Loudoun stations has grown since opening but remains below pre-pandemic projections, a challenge that better pedestrian access could help address over time.
This project is the third package in what the county has structured as a phased program of bike and pedestrian improvements specifically tied to the new stations. The grant also includes a right-of-way acquisition component, which suggests some land may need to be purchased from adjacent property owners before construction can begin, adding a layer of complexity to the timeline.
Loudoun County has been among the wealthiest and fastest-growing counties in the country, with its population more than doubling since 2000 to over 420,000 residents. Its 2019 Comprehensive Plan called for walkable, bikeable nodes around the Metro stations, and the Loudoun Station mixed-use development near the Ashburn stop has been a centerpiece of that vision. How well the county connects its neighborhoods to its stations is increasingly seen as a test of whether that vision becomes reality.
