Rail Against Sprawl: A History of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project

FAIN: DOI-299381-24

George Mason University (Fairfax, VA 22030-4444)
Zachary M. Schrag (Project Director: September 2023 to present)

Development of a scholarly monograph on the history of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project.  

The Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project extends the Washington Metro rail transit system for twenty-three miles from Arlington, Virginia, through Tysons Corner and Washington Dulles International Airport into Loudoun County. The project is remarkable for two reasons: space and time. Physically, it consists of a heavy rail rapid transit system—traditionally an urban technology—built far outside a traditional downtown. Temporarily, it is a massive infrastructure project built long after the end of the federal largesse that funded the original Metro system. My research therefore has two main questions. First, how did the creators of this project overcome suburban skepticism about transit? And secondly, how did they do so in an era of fiscal austerity? My book project, Rail against Sprawl, seeks to answer those questions, and to explore the dangers and opportunities of rail rapid transit in the twenty-first century.