Just closing the loop on what turned out to be an anti-climactic search for the names that will don two of the three Loudoun County Silver Line stations.
The Metro board on Thursday, unanimously and without discussion, approved “Loudoun Gateway” for the Route 606 station, and “Ashburn” for the Route 772 station. They are the same names the Loudoun board picked last month.
Ashburn and Loudoun Gateway will join the pre-ordained Washington Dulles International Airport (which, really, is Loudoun's gateway) as Loudoun three Metro stations.
While the $2.7 billion Silver Line extension between Reston and Ashburn is not expected to open until 2019 ( more likely, 2020), the selection of station names now “will assist in the preparation of Silver Line Phase 2 service by providing consistent points of reference across all agencies involved,” according to a Metro staff report.
Loudoun Gateway, as I noted in March, feels more like a branding effort than a name meant to orient riders to their location, or to denote nearby geographical features or centers of activity, or to "evoke imagery in the mind of the patron," as Metro's station naming policy requires.
Route 606 and the Dulles Greenway is not a gateway at all, as it's four miles from Loudoun's border with Fairfax. And while Loudoun Gateway does exist, it's a business park located about 2.5 miles from the future station.
Roughly 3,500 people weighed in on potential station names either through Loudoun and Metro surveys or during one of two public engagement meetings.