The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors authorized a number of procedural steps last Tuesday (Sept. 30) to advance plans for the nearly billion-dollar Richmond Highway bus rapid transit (BRT) initiative known as The One.
In actions combined into a larger consent agenda approval, supervisors formally requested Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) funding to support the project and scheduled an upcoming public hearing to address the acquisition of easements from property owners along the route.
The 7.4-mile BRT project is planned to run in mixed traffic from the Huntington Metro station along North Kings Highway before shifting to dedicated travel lanes within the median of Richmond Highway (Route 1) to Fort Belvoir.
Nine stations will dot the route, and improvements are slated for cyclists and pedestrians. The estimated total cost is about $979 million; county officials previously identified sources for about half the funding needed.
Supervisors authorized staff to submit a request for $463 million in NVTA funding as part of the agency’s next round of project evaluations. Governing bodies of jurisdictions across the region have until Oct. 31 to formally authorize requests, with funding decisions likely to be announced next summer.
The BRT project is the only proposal Fairfax County is submitting for consideration in what’s known as NVTA’s 2026-31 Six-Year Program Update.
In a semi-related action, Fairfax supervisors on Sept. 30 approved $130,000 in carryover funds to support efforts to market the Richmond Highway corridor to the broader community. The area will need more support as the transportation project gears up, Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck said.
“The next five years are going to be really difficult,” he predicted.
The board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 28 on whether it should authorize the use of eminent domain powers to speed up land acquisitions required for utility relocations on parts of the route.
According to a staff report, the county has completed acquisitions on 39 parcels. The public hearing will concern 32 commercially zoned parcels and seven properties zoned for residential use.
Negotiations will continue over the next month before supervisors could authorize “quick-take” proceedings, with final property values to be determined through later proceedings.
Fairfax supervisors support projects from other jurisdictions
In other transportation actions on Sept. 30, supervisors authorized staff to formally support NVTA funding proposals submitted by jurisdictions abutting Fairfax County’s borders.
The projects include:
- Reconstruction of South Elden Street from Herndon Parkway to Sterling Road (Town of Herndon)
- Multimodal projects on S. George Mason Drive (Arlington County)
- A shared-use path on Haycock Road (City of Falls Church)
- North Collector Road (Loudoun County)
- A rail-to-trail project along the Virginia Railway Express Manassas Line (Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park)
Those projects will be considered in NVTA’s next round of funding, with decisions slated to be announced in mid-2026.
