The Town of Vienna intends to seek state funding to support a planned Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail visitor center.
The request for $8 million is among more than two dozen priorities identified in the town’s legislative agenda for the Virginia General Assembly’s upcoming 2026 session.
Scheduled to be finalized by the Vienna Town Council after a public hearing tonight (Monday), the package contains several items carried over from last year, including town leaders’ opposition to any move toward allowing a casino in Fairfax County and a call for towns to receive a portion of the plastic bag tax revenue collected by their surrounding counties.
During the 2025 legislative session, a bill to make Fairfax County — specifically Tysons — eligible for a casino stalled in the House of Delegates, while the General Assembly passed a measure requiring counties to allocate a portion of any plastic bag tax revenue to towns, only to see it vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Among the new items that Vienna hopes to bring to state lawmakers’ attention is the funding request for the W&OD Trail visitor center, which is being conceived in partnership with trail owner and manager NOVA Parks.
Announced this spring at an Arbor Day event, the proposed visitor center will serve over 30 million annual users of the 45-mile-long trail between Shirlington and Purcellville. Vienna was chosen as the facility’s potential location because it stands at the “geographic center” of the trail, then-NOVA Parks executive director Paul Gilbert said.
The town and regional parks agency have signed an agreement to collaborate on acquiring two properties where the future visitor center could be located: a vacant office building at 125 Church Street and a former bank building at 200 Dominion Road that currently houses an interior design business.
The funds requested from the state would include $4 million to acquire the properties, including the “historic” former bank building for preservation, and $4 million for “improvements on the historic real property upon the final closing on the aforementioned properties,” according to the draft legislative agenda.
Officials have already secured $1 million in federal funds for the visitor center project, thanks to the late Congressman Gerry Connolly.
Other new positions staked out by the Town of Vienna in its proposed legislative agenda include:
- Support for increased local authority to regulate vaping products, including the ability to ban sales within 2,500 linear feet of schools — an expansion of a 1,000-foot limit approved by the General Assembly in 2024. The town would also be in favor of taxing vaping products if the proceeds go to localities.
- Support for the creation of a statewide gaming commission to regulate gambling in Virginia
- Support for state-related campaign finance bills, including ones that impose limits on campaign contributions, mandate the disclosure of donors and allow localities to implement public financing of elections
- A requirement that people who are under 16 or don’t have a Virginia driver’s license to undergo training before they can operate a moped or electric bicycle on public roads
The town also revised a request that state legislators require electrical and telecommunication utilities to be placed underground in urban and suburban areas within “a defined timeframe” to specify that any bill should apply to places “deemed to be at risk for widespread power outages that affect large numbers of users.”
Tonight’s public hearing on the 2026 legislative agenda is scheduled to take place early in the town council meeting, which will start at 7:30 p.m.
