Fairfax County, Va., has given the go-ahead for a major makeover of the U.S. Route 1 corridor near Mt. Vernon. Known as Embark Richmond Highway, the land-use plan would revitalize a congested, economically run-down 7.5-mile corridor in Virginia’s most populous county with 18,000 new housing units and 8.5 million sq ft of non-residential development, including office towers and hotels.
The resulting development is expected to quadruple the area’s current population, to about 40,000 residents, with much of the residential growth concentrated around nine stations of a planned bus rapid transit line. A 3.1-mile, two-station extension of the existing Metrorail Yellow Line to Fort Belvoir is also included in the project scope, as well as a new street grid and improved corridor-wide access for pedestrians and cyclists.