Business & Tech

'Rail To Loudoun' Launched to Promote Metro Project

The Loudoun Chamber of Commerce aims to provide information about economic benefits.

The Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce today formally announced the Rail To Loudoun Coalition’s launch of www.railtoloudoun.com, intended to provide up-to-date, data-backed information on the economic and quality-of-life benefits that the Dulles Corridor Rail Project would create for the county.

The Loudoun Chamber—a longtime advocate for the Metro project to extend the Silver Line to Dulles and beyond to Ashburn—has taken the lead in organizing the group, a partnership of business organizations and companies in Northern Virginia that are working to support the project’s completion.

“The Dulles Corridor Rail Project is the most important transportation infrastructure project in Loudoun County since the construction of Washington Dulles International Airport a half century ago,” said Tony Howard, the chamber’s president and CEO, in a press release about the group. “Just as the airport has, the Dulles rail project will transform our community by creating many new, high paying jobs, better transportation choices and a more diversified tax base to lessen the burden on homeowners and businesses.”

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The www.railtoloudoun.com site contains information about benefits of the project to Loudoun. The site also contains letters, public testimony and endorsements for the project from Loudoun’s leading business and nonprofit leaders and organizations, and includes a calendar of important upcoming meetings by the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and other groups where advocates of rail can offer their support. In addition, there are links to the contact information for Loudoun’s elected leaders and the latest news on the progress of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project.

“The Loudoun business community stands firmly behind the Dulles Corridor Rail Project,” Howard stated. “The www.railtoloudoun.com web site provides the project’s backers the information they can use to provide our Board of Supervisors with the support they need to approve this project.”

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As noted George Mason University economist Dr. Stephen Fuller has pointed out, investment in Metro to Loudoun will generate tangible benefits for Loudoun, allowing Loudoun to transform from a bedroom community into a thriving commercial center, fueling the growth of 40,000 new jobs by 2030.

According to Rail to Loudoun, Metro will help the Loudoun economy achieve a 10 percent higher growth rate—adding $4.2 billion in economic activity during the next 20 years. Salaries of Loudoun’s workers are expected to double, according to some data, reflecting the increase in professional and business services that rail is expected to attract. 

Some areas with rail have experienced a more focused concentration of growth close to rail lines, generating commercial tax dollars while protecting rural communities. In the Washington, DC, region, 28 percent of the tax base—or $3.1 billion in property taxes—is generated from property within a half mile of a Metro station.

“Transit-oriented development is real economic asset that our nearest competitors are able to use to their advantage,” Howard said. “With Rail To Loudoun complete, Loudoun County will become increasingly competitive in the fight to attract new businesses, new investments and new jobs to our county.”

Learn more and follow the Rail To Loudoun Coalition on Twitter, @Rail2Loudoun, and Facebook, facebook.com/RailToLoudoun.


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