Get ready for months of weekend Metro closures with a cherry blossom break
Your commute might be a little less than blooming for a while.
Trains in the region will be replaced with shuttle buses for 10 weekends of planned construction starting this Saturday at the Crystal City Metro station, and that means riding to Ronald Reagan National Airport may take longer than usual, according to WMATA.
The work will primarily occur at the Crystal City station, where a new entrance will be built at 18th Street and Crystal Drive to accommodate growing ridership, the transit agency said in a release.
In order to get the construction done, the station will shut down for multiple upcoming weekends.
From Feb. 14-16, and the two weekends after that, the Crystal City station will close and free shuttle buses will run every 8 to 10 minutes between Pentagon City and Reagan National.
If you plan to take Metro to the airport from north of Pentagon City, give yourself extra travel time. The shuttle bus trip is expected to take about 20 minutes, but traffic could change that.
Then, over the weekend of March 7-8, work will expand. Three stations — Crystal City, Reagan National and Potomac Yard — will close so track maintenance work can happen too.
Free shuttle buses will operate between Pentagon City and Braddock Road.
The weekend work will pause during the busy cherry blossom season from early March through early May.
It will pick up again May 9-10 and May 16-17, when the three stations will close again.
Over the four weekends that will follow, only the Crystal City station will be closed.
“Crystal City is one of our busiest stations in Virginia with over 5,500 average daily entries,” Metro General Manager and CEO Randy Clarke said at the 2024 groundbreaking.
“This new station entrance will be an asset to our system and is a great example of the way Metro and the region are working together to grow our economy and connect people to transit.”
The new entrance will cost about $146 million for construction and furnishing, and will be paid for with federal, state, regional and other area funds. It’s expected to open in the summer of next year.