Two major transportation upgrades at Reagan National Airport have gotten the greenlight from the National Park Service.
The agency gave its blessing to a planned pedestrian bridge connecting Crystal City to the airport as well as proposed improvements to the airport’s roads.
The pedestrian bridge, dubbed the CC2DCA multimodal connection, is expected to be about 1,300 feet long, taking five minutes to cross on foot and providing a direct path between a planned Virginia Railway Express station at 2011 Crystal Drive and DCA’s Terminal 2.
It’s a project years in the making, part of a package of transportation upgrades included in the HQ2 deal with Amazon. The majority of funding for the $57.2 million project has come from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, which approved $18 million in funding this spring and another $21.1 million in July.
Proposed upgrades to the airport’s roadway network, meanwhile, include the following.
- Constructing a new facility with a consolidated rental car center, public parking and corporate Airports Authority office space.
- Creating additional public and employee parking at the airport.
- Implementing ground transportation improvements “to enhance access to the Airport and provide access to these new facilities.”
“DCA’s current roadway network experiences significant congestion and delays throughout the year,” the National Park Service noted. “The configuration and layout of the roadway network does not convey traffic in an efficient manner. Additionally, signage and wayfinding are compromised by the configuration and layout of the roadway network with short roadway segments and weaving distances requiring quick decision-making leading to traffic congestion.”
Following the completion of environmental assessments, the projects received “findings of no significant impact” from the National Park Service, confirming that they can proceed.
“Both projects reflect the NPS’s commitment to improving infrastructure and connectivity while safeguarding the environment,” a press release says.
