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Construction affecting pedestrian access at Alexandria Union Station began Thursday and continues through 8 p.m. today as Virginia Railway Express pushes forward with a railroad bridge replacement project that will bring months of noise and periodic road closures to the Rosemont neighborhood, part of a nearly $6 billion initiative to ease a critical rail bottleneck south of Washington.
Through this evening, pedestrians at the station are being directed away from the normal ADA ramp and around to the front of the building, where Callahan Drive sidewalks provide access to King Street and Metro. VRE warned passengers to allow extra travel time. An ADA-accessible crossing over the tracks remains available but requires a staff escort. Normal pedestrian access resumes Saturday.
The two-day detour is an early signal of disruptions to come. Pile driving on the railroad right of way is expected to begin in late April and continue into May, according to information VRE provided to the Rosemont Citizens' Association's Planning, Environment, Land-Use, and Transportation Committee and shared Thursday on the neighborhood listserv.
The PELT Committee serves as the RCA's voice on infrastructure matters, providing residents with objective information about developments affecting the neighborhood and representing Rosemont's interests before Alexandria city government.
Most pile driving will occur on weekends, though some weekday work is anticipated. Under City of Alexandria permit rules, pile driving is allowed between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturdays. No work is permitted on Sundays or city-observed holidays without special approval. VRE said it will seek a noise variance permit for work outside those windows, requiring the agency to take feasible steps to mitigate noise.
Workers will drive interlocking steel sheet piles to form bulkheads, then spend three additional weekends in May installing steel "jump spans" — temporary structures that allow trains to continue operating while crews excavate the roadbed beneath them to make way for new, longer concrete bridge abutments. Work on those abutments is expected to begin as early as June using "drill and fill" mini-piles, which do not require traditional pile driving.
The contractor has 756 consecutive calendar days from a notice to proceed issued in December 2025 to reach substantial completion.
Road Closures
The jump span installations will trigger the project's most disruptive road closures to date. King Street will be shut to all traffic between Sunset Drive and its intersection with Commonwealth Avenue and Daingerfield Road on three long weekends: May 1-4, May 15-18, and May 29-June 1. Closures begin late Friday nights and lift just before Tuesday morning rush hour.
On Commonwealth Avenue, one of two lanes under the bridge will close during those periods, with flaggers directing alternating one-way traffic.
Both streets are expected to remain largely open from June 2 through the end of 2026. The existing bridges are not expected to come down until the first quarter of 2027.
Pedestrian Access
The north sidewalk on King Street will be closed only on the three May closure weekends.
The one pedestrian pathway closing for the full duration of the project is a sidewalk on the Alexandria Railroad Station grounds, running alongside the raised roadbed from the pedestrian tunnel under the tracks to the south side of King Street. The adjacent crosswalk has already been removed, along with its pedestrian signal lights.
Funding and Scope
The combined station and bridge project draws from several funding sources. The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, which designed the replacement bridges in collaboration with CSX, is contributing $91.4 million through the Commonwealth Rail Fund. VRE is building them as part of the broader Alexandria Station Improvements Project.
Additional funding includes $21.9 million through Virginia's SMARTSCALE program, $13.2 million in Federal Transit Administration formula funds plus state and local matches, and $9.3 million in federal rail crossing and safety funds.
The two bridges — one spanning King Street, one spanning Commonwealth Avenue — sit within a roughly 0.05-mile radius of Alexandria Station and the King Street-Old Town Metro station, making the corridor one of the most transit-dense intersections in Northern Virginia.
Officials broke ground last November alongside the Alexandria Fourth Track Project, which will add six miles of track between Arlington and Alexandria to separate freight and passenger operations and boost rail throughput by 33%, according to Virginia Secretary of Transportation W. Sheppard Miller III.
When complete, the new bridges will increase horizontal clearance beneath them — creating space the city intends to use for improved pedestrian and cyclist access as part of a broader King and Commonwealth streetscape improvement effort.
Alexandria Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley, who chairs the VRE board, made that point at last November's groundbreaking.
"The bridges are not only going to improve the experience for rail travel, but they're going to improve the experience for everybody underneath that bridge — to drive under it, to walk under it, to bike under it," Bagley said.
VRE is serving as lead agency on both the station improvements and the bridge replacements under a single contract, part of what interim CEO Dallas Richards called "a once-in-a-generation type of project."
The Alexandria projects are also linked to the Long Bridge expansion across the Potomac River. Without the local improvements, officials have said, a new bottleneck would simply emerge just south of where the old one stood.
For project updates, visit the VRE Alexandria Station project page. Residents seeking updates can contact VRE at AlexandriaStationImprovements@vre.org.
Ryan Belmore
