New path by future Innovation Center North station set to open in 2025

A project to improve access from neighborhoods to the yet-to-open Innovation Center Metro station could begin in the summer of 2024 and be completed a year later.

That’s what Sonia Shahnaj, a project manager for the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, told community members last week during an online meeting about the project, which will create a pedestrian path from Farougi Court and Apgar Place to a kiss-and-ride parking lot, wrapping around a green space used for cricket.

“Creating walkable and bikeable access to transit stations is really critical from a transportation standpoint, from a quality of life standpoint and from an environmental standpoint, so this is a big deal,” Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust said at the meeting.

The project will create an approximately 2,000-foot-long path that’s 10-feet wide. It’ll be 14-feet wide for two bridges that cross Horsepen Creek, one that’s 367 feet long and another that’s 135 feet long. Lighting will be there, too.

Easements will shave off some of the green space to make way for the trail.

Updates on the project are listed on a county web page, and comments related to the meeting can be submitted to FCDOT by Feb. 4, 2022.

An extension of the Metrorail from Ashburn to Reston, including a connection to the Dulles airport, is delayed but could open this year.

Nearby, a development project called Rivana at Innovation Station would create a residential-office-retail complex on a 103-acre space with up to 2,719 dwelling units.