West Falls Church is a Washington Metro station in Fairfax County, Virginia on the Orange Line, the first station inside the beltway on the Orange Line going east. It is one of only two stations in the system to have three tracks, the other being the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport station. The center track is used for train storage, and for relaying trains to the adjacent Falls Church Yard.
The station serves the suburban community of Falls Church and the Northern Virginia Center operated by Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. While the station has a street address on Haycock Road, it is physically located in the median of Interstate 66 near Virginia State Route 7 (Leesburg Pike); riders access the platform and mezzanine by means of an elevated walkway from the parking area. The station is also the nearest to Tysons Corner, a major commercial area. The initialisms for the two universities were added to the station's name in 1999, two years after the dedication of the shared graduate center. These initialisms were moved to a subtitle location on November 3, 2011. Service began on June 7, 1986.
This is a major suburban transfer station, as many commuter buses that serve communities near the Dulles Toll and Access Roads (Virginia State Route 267) connect to the Metro system at West Falls Church using a bus-only exit from the Access Road. These buses include Fairfax Connector to points within Fairfax including Reston and Herndon, Metrobus to Tysons Corner, Washington Flyer to Dulles International Airport, and Loudoun County Transit reverse commute routes to businesses including AOL and MCI and transfer points in Dulles.
The Silver Line to Dulles via Tyson's Corner is planned to join the Orange Line just east of this station and is estimated to start operating in 2013.
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