The DC Metro's Least Used Station 

According to Wikipedia, Loudoun Gateway has the least ridership of all the stations, but it is only 6 months old. The next station with the least ridership is Cheverly, which opened in 1978. Instead of building Loudon Gateway, they should have extended the silver line even further to Leesburg.

Not surprising considering the nearby residents came out so strongly against a bus route. Loudoun is the very definition of exclusionary car-dependency.

If you have only one elevator, and it breaks, your station is suddenly no longer wheel chair accessible.

I think it's built with future growth of the area in mind (you can tell by all the new development being built around the new station), especially since that part of Loudoun keeps growing rapidly. Gotta give WMATA credit for at least thinking ahead.

1. Hopefully there's going to be transit oriented development nearby in a couple years. The surface parking lot could easily be developed into TOD. Having a station with empty land around it may not seem good at first, but it has basically a blank canvas to build new developments. 2. Double elevators are the norm these days because if one elevator is out of service, there is a backup elevator to allow full accessibility

WMATA's updated design standards require 2 elevators between all levels for redundancy. Loudoun Gateway is more easily accessible from the Dulles Greenway then Ashburn. When the Dulles Greenway was built in 1995 a Transit Center was built just east of where the Loudoun Gateway station is today. It is likely that at some future date the Transit Center will be moved to the Loudoun Gateway station and the site will be redeveloped for other uses. There is no Park and Ride facilities for commuters at Dulles Airport. It is likely that the station will not be viewed as being over built in 50 years.

So I agree with you that the station is clearly overbuilt -- but I think it's also important to point out that you were there on one of the very worst days to judge busyness! 😅 First, April 21 was in the middle of most of the DMV's Spring Break, so of course it was quiet. And even if it had been a different week, Fridays are not a good day to judge normal commuting busyness, especially Friday afternoons. Office workers have a whole different set of scheduling norms. I used to work in an office that housed about 80 people and on most days maybe half of them were present at any given time -- but on Fridays there were often fewer than 10 of us present in the morning and by the afternoon half of those had left. That was even before the pandemic. Since the pandemic, with so many office workers in DC, I imagine most of them telework on Fridays -- if they work Fridays at all! I know a lot of people at that job who took every other Friday off.

Pentagon City Station was built in the middle of a grassed field. Look at it now! Give it time.

Even in rush hour there are only about 5 people who get off here per train. Outside of that it’s only 1 or two, and sometimes the train stops without dropping anyone off or picking anyone up at all. Most commuters either go all the way to Ashburn and use the giant parking garages there, or they take a commuter bus to a Loudoun County park and ride. If you’re going to build a station on empty land, put some useful development there or something.

Two elevators is an accessibility consideration - if one is out of service, the station is still accessible to people in wheelchairs.

The surface parking and bus bays predate everything else by about 20 years. It was a park and ride (the bus) to places like Rosalyn or downtown DC before the silver line existed. That’s why so many bus bays. It was actually quite busy pre-COVID and pre-Silver Line. Ashburn station is now easier to get to from the west/north west. For people in say South Riding or Stone Ridge this may still be the best park and ride. There will never be houses here because it’s inside the airport high noise area. There will never be tall buildings because it’s in the approach of a runway. There was talk of a new Football stadium near here as an option, but most local residents are opposed.

I was working in that area in 2019. The station was almost completely built by that time. I'm sure that it would have had a lot of commuters parking there and taking the Metrorail or Loudoun bus if everything wasn't shutdown in March of 2020.

It should be mandatory to coordinate station and housing development. It takes about 52 minutes on the DC Metro between Loudoun Gateway and Farragut West. Driving takes about 31 minutes. So there is about an hour difference round trip when a time buffer for driving to the station and waiting for the train are added. For a lot of people it is just much more convenient to drive the whole way, depending on destination parking and traffic conditions. Increasing the toll on the Dulles Greenway Toll Road might increase ridership.

Even before the line opened, I could tell just my looking at a map that this station was really pointless. A station at Wolf Trap would have been far more useful.

As a local of the area, I could give you some information. Firstly, the station serves the Sterling area (better for INNOVATION CENTER imo) and low-level industry. Secondly, the theee bus routes that do stop here are actually pretty used for loudoun bus standards. However, there have been proposals to move these to Ashburn. This station was overbuilt and will never have any development (based on my research)

I work at Dulles Airport, stuff will probably be built around in the future

I wonder what ridership and parking would look like if this station was built pre-pandemic.

That location is not too far away from Amazon warehouse, Metro rail yard, and other warehouses may be is for the worker?

I wonder if this could be converted into an apartment complex. I feel like that would be a lot more helpful and useful than an unused parking garage.

They just built it. Plus there’s still land to develop

It's a new station. In 20 years, there will be a whole development of apartments, town-homes, and shops built up around it that will make garner it more traffic. You are just now seeing the suburban stations of the blue and orange lines do this. Some of those stations are 30 years old. It takes time, but build it and they will come.

Lol you hit the nail on the head with all your points. It's so frustrating.

I think it was mostly a waste too, great video; thanks for sharing!

Yeah that's a good use to the top floor of the parking garage the plane spotters can use it.

New subscriber: I enjoyed the video. Do you plan to revisit in a year or so?

there are buses connecting most well travelled metro stops. they also had municipal support that encouraged shopping and nearby apartments. its now 2024, is this stop still so sparsely used?

Not that it will probably help/change much, but there is plans to extend Sterling Boulevard over towards the station which will hopefully? lead to some bus routes connecting some of the apartment complexes and town home developments along there to Metro. Unfortunately not much will be built near the station development wise, as most of that land is zoned for data centers and warehouses. That red building in your shots is a new data center in fact.

They need to bring in better bus service from nearby neighborhoods

Once Shellhorn Rd connects Loudoun County Pkwy and Moran Rd by the station, I’m guessing ridership here will jump up, since getting here will be much easier then. Currently, coming from the west (unless you can drive up Old Ox Rd) is inconvenient without paying the Greenway toll, and if you’re on the east, it’s probably more time efficient to just go to Innovation Center. Trains run slow past IAD as well, which just makes Innovation Center seem like a better starting point for journeys into DC. Once the north side of Innovation Center develops, I imagine ridership will again drop at Loudoun Gateway, since there will likely he adequate parking at Innovation, closer to both Sterling and Washington, which means both shorter drives and train rides. A better spot for a second west-of-Dulles station could have been further west at Belmont Ridge Rd (if not all the way to Raflo Park in Leesburg where the open right-of-way ends).

Probably will be part of more development around there. I don't know, but maybe they just were thinking about the future. I know the silver line probably will eventually go to Leesburg. I read something about that 1 time they want to build, like 3 more stations towards Leesburg. And I think that will be the Western terminus of the silver line for now, but who knows, if the silver line will continue down 7 or something towards percyville, or that area or cross over the mountain into Clark County. Berryville and then maybe end up in Winchester where I live.

If you saw Bethesda 10 years ago vs now you’d be so surprised. If they built this stations, they must be projecting growth. Maybe the area will be rezoned.

It’s wild to me that anyone would build a metro station 2 miles from the nearest homes!

I think Covid-19 and the resulting workplace and commuting changes really removed a lot of the potential riders. I like using the median for the tracks and stations because I think it makes a lot of sense and is a great use of otherwise wasted space. Outside of less people commuting to D.C., I think the main problem the metro has in Loudoun in general is that it's usually about twice as slow as driving and limits your freedom of movement in a way people who live there aren't used too. It's just not convenient and the daily riders aren't there.

I always kind of wondered why Loudoun Gateway was even built tbh rather than juts go straight to Ashburn from IAD and have there be 5 stations for phase 2 over 6 and 10 stops on the segment from McLean-Ashburn altogether over 11 and Dulles be the second to last stop rathe than 3rd last going west to Ashburn. Similarly to Potomac Yard given how close it is to both DCA and Braddock Road

I could be trying too hard to be optimistic about this station, but perhaps it was built ahead of the possibility of future Transit-oriented development in the surrounding greenfield. It's clear that it's a ways off from that, but the station does at least serve some riders as a commuter station until the surrounding area is filled in at some undetermined point in the future.

You said there is not a highway under the pedestrian bridge, what was that road going under you called the Dulles Greenway a toll road.

This parking structure checks all the boxes and accommodates everyone. Also totally useless.

All of this and yet there is still only 12 overnight parking spots in the whole metro system

it may not be the most used but that’s cause of remote jobs once offices make you come metro travel from ashburn would skyrocket, and also this is a new station

Incredible infrastructure. Good to see.

Seams to be what in the uk we would call a park and ride station but in a country with parking minimums instead of parking maximums in city’s it’s pointless but you could build apartments around it with shops on the ground floor as a new development with great parking and transit options but hay I’m from England where what we call Suburbs are what you call inner cities so ya know 😂😂

Very sad, but I am going to be an optimist and say that it is good that they built what they could while funds were actually available. The minute that liquid fuel is appropriately priced, these facilities will be a lifesaver to those stranded in the suburbs. The extra elevator is for redundancy in the event of failure. The bathrooms, well maybe some form of segregation is returning.

i’ll never understand the big amount of useless parking lots in US cities

They know something you don't know. It's called a 10 to 20 year plan

Ngl I’ve lived in dc all my life and catch the metro everyday and I’ve never heard of this station 😂😂😂

Some day they'll extend the metro to Frederick County Md.

In all honesty, the station's heavier uses would be during the rush hour periods, and from what it looks like, even that's hoping for too much at this time. Great idea by WMATA, but poorly utilized. The public restrooms are AN ABSOLUTE MUST because I cannot tell you how many times I've shown up at the station needing to use the restroom, and the nearest one would be a long bus ride away.

Bathrooms! This is what the new stations are getting?

Yes. Loudoun Gateway absolutely doesn't need to exist. They should have taken the money from Loudoun Gateway and used it to extend the silver line to Leesburg.

This is much less idiotic as it looks like. Now you have a transit hub with huge room for development of transit oriented neighborhoods. And if the pricing feels right it will attract car drivers. Give it time.

Wayyy overbuult. But this station only recently opened, and I'm guessing thry hope to spur development around here as they did with phase 1 of the silver line

It's better to have it and not need it....

#singlefamilyhousing

History has shown there is eventually a development boom near Metro stations once they open. Don’t be so pessimistic and short sited. You have to be able to look past your nose and outside of the bubble around your head. Come back in ten years and see what that area looks like.

We don’t use it because it takes SO LONG to get to DC. The train has to stop at EVERY SINGLE station on the way in. It takes FOREVER - car is always a better option - ALWAYS. Just a huge waste of taxpayer funds.

DC is catching up with LA. LA loved to build you need cars touse rail stations. The worst part is metrolink. A lot LA stations are in middle of busy neighborhoods. However, walking 5 miles is faster than taking buses. That's the reasons LA non car drivers hate rails because they don't benefit n many bus lines got cut. Hmm, building rails hurt non car drivers. Only American transit advocates could come up this dumb idea, but selfish train lovers love the idea. The fight very hard to force the rail agencies to spend more money to build n expan parking lots in expensive neighborhoods. Oh the rail projects also kill rail stations. LA gold line skipped one stations because the rail agency couldn't secure the land near train stations. Unlike DC metro, Loudoun has terrible public transportation just like LA.i was there twice. The money could have spent to improve local bus. Oh no, that will anger selfish train lovers. If Americans cannot get out cars to take public transportation, you will see more of this. Even if train stations build in busy neighborhoods, without proper public transportation, its useless. I was in DC. I was very happy that Pentagon city, Crystal city n other stations have many local bus connections not like LA. Hey liberal n progressive love to destroy American including public transportation. I used to vote Democrat. Then i became independent. Politicians like Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti, Gavin Newsom, Diane Feinstein n Joe Biden love to screw up non car drivers by promoting you need car rail systems. Its good things there are many parking spaces. However, do those out of touch designers even know this, the majority of handicap who use public transportation are visual impaired or other handicap that hinder driving. I guess putting couple handicap spaces is cheaper. Wait, after complaining, are you selfish train lover. Did you get to this station by rail or your car is one of visible objects in this area.

Hello. Please do not make any more videos. Your pessimistic reviews are not welcomed. Any station that prevents congestion within DC limits is a win for the whole DMV.