n LOUDOUN
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VOL. 7, NO. 52
Pg. 8 | n EDUCATION
Pg. 12 | n OBITUARIES
Pg. 14 | n PUBLIC NOTICES
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Pg. 31
NOVEMBER 17, 2022
Silver Line to Loudoun Opens BY RENSS GREENE AND NORMAN K. STYER rgreene@loudounnow.com nstyer@loudounnow.com
Passengers on Metrorail’s long-awaited Silver Line to Ashburn rode the rails for the first time Tuesday. The Nov. 15 grand opening brought out elected and government officials ranging from county supervisors to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. He pointed out the ribbon cutting coincided with the anniversaries of two other transportation milestones—it was one year to the day since President Joe Biden signed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and only two days shy of the 60th anniversary of Dulles Airport’s opening. “When the airport was first opened, almost exactly 60 years ago today, President Kennedy said that the building symbolizes the aspirations of the United States. I think the same can be said of the Silver Line today, allowing people to affordably get to where they need to go, whether it is a baggage handler working at the airport or a federal employee commuting to the District of Columbia, or a software engineer working at the terrific tech employers who are here,” he said. “In a region that’s moving like Northern Virginia, we need reliable transit and transportation to support families, small businesses, and continued economic success. That’s exactly what the Silver Line extension is going to do,” Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA-10) said.
Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
One of the first passenger trains along Metro’s Silver Line extension into Loudoun arrives at Dulles International Airport on Tuesday, Nov. 15.
“We get to cut the ribbon, but who are we doing it for? We’re doing it for one reason and one reason only,” Loudoun County Chair Phyllis Randall (D-At Large) said. “Elected officials, community leaders, county employees all over the country, we’re here for one reason: we’re here to make a better quality of life for the people that we serve. This is a great day.”
‘A Whole New Game’ “It feels fantastic to see,” said former Ashburn District supervisor Ralph Buona, one of the county board members who voted to bring Metro to Loudoun in a 5-4 vote in 2012. “It’s been 10 years and four months since we took the vote. And it’s been a long haul ever since, but now
that you see it all together, you see the infrastructure, you see the excitement.” Buona and other supervisors faced long criticism for that vote—criticism that was only renewed with each Silver Line delay and budget overrun. The first SILVER LINE OPENS continues on page 38
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