Van Dorn Street is an island platformed Washington Metro station in both Fairfax County and Alexandria, Virginia, United States. The station was opened on June 15, 1991, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Providing service for the Blue Line, the station is located at South Van Dorn Street and Eisenhower Avenue, next to the Capital Beltway. From 1991 to 1997 it was the southwestern terminus of the Blue Line.
In June 1977, the city of Alexandria, Southern Railway and the United Parcel Service reached an agreement allowing for Metro to retain the air rights for the construction of the Van Dorn station when funding became available. After years of planning, in March 1987 Metro awarded a $32.3 million contract to complete the station by 1991 to Dillingham Construction of Pleasanton, California. Originally slated to be part of the Yellow Line, in early 1990 it was decided Van Dorn would be served by the Blue Line with the Yellow Line being shifted to the Huntington station. The station opened on June 15, 1991, with the completion of 3.9 miles (6.3 km) of rail west of the King Street – Old Town station. Van Dorn Street would remain as the southwestern terminus of the Blue Line from its completion through the opening of the Franconia–Springfield station on June 29, 1997.
Famous quotes containing the words van and/or street:
“A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.”
—Carl Van Doren (1885–1950)
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)