Georgetown Getting a Gold Line to the RFK Site?


Courtesy WMATA/Georgetowner Graphics.

Mention enhanced Metro access for Georgetown, a proposed direct line to the new stadium at the RFK site and President Trump’s favorite color, gold, and you’ll light up local social media and get Georgetowners texting and talking.

Cuneyt Dil and Tom Sherwood did that with their latest episode of the “Dream City Podcast,” Dil added to the topic with his Town Talker on Axios, headlined “Exclusive: Metro CEO Randy Clarke’s message to Trump.”

Because Georgetown never obtained a Metrorail station, anything approximating it is big news. To be clear, the Gold Line doesn’t include subway cars but is a dedicated bus route in the middle of town, going east to the west, specifically from Benning Road to Rosslyn. It will also essentially replace the goals of the streetcar and reenergize K Street and H Street with a bus corridor in the center lane to distribute people across the Metro system — all thanks to Washington’s NFL team returning to Washington, D.C.

Because of the additional ridership on game day, the Stadium-Armory station will be updated. The Gold Line is designed to lighten the load.

Construction of the proposed bus rapid transit service is expected cost between $300 million and $400 million — and be completed by the debut of the new stadium in 2030.

Dil wrote of “a zippy, dedicated bus route from Georgetown to the new Commanders stadium,” adding “the transit system’s general manager has a message for a powerful man who loves gold.”

“President Trump and the entire administration say they want to build,” Clarke says, “and they want to build faster. … Metro wants to build stuff, and we want to build faster.” 

Clarke said of the Gold Line on the “Dream City Podcast,” it will be “a lot better than the streetcar ever was.”

“Clarke has a rare, fleeting window to set the city’s agenda,” Dil wrote. “And he’s more about realistic ideas (a fast bus that works) than waiting decades for the perfect rail line. … If Clarke convinces the next mayor to fund Metro’s bus lanes on congested K street, Metro could help spur new investment in Washington’s old office core.”

“We’ll be looking for hundreds of millions of dollars in partnership with [the Trump administration],” Clarke said on the podcast.

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