Return to Work Order Spikes Ridership on VRE
Ridership in February is up over February of 2024.
By Hank Silverberg
CORRESPONDENT
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Ridership on the Virginia Railway Express, northern Virginia’s commuter railway, has gone up significantly since the January “Return to Work” order issued to all federal employees by President Donald Trump.
As one of his first actions, Trump ordered the executive branches to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”
Since that order, VRE ridership in February was up to an average of 8,046 passengers a day, a substantial increase over February of 2024, when the average was 6,864.
Karen Finucan-Clarkson, a spokeswoman for VRE, says the railroad has been running ads on Washington’s all-news radio station, WTOP, and on social media, trying to lure “return to work” riders back, but she says they have not polled riders to find out why they are now using the trains in larger numbers.
The increased ridership is also significant because it comes at a time of uncertainty for many federal workers in the midst of layoffs ordered by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and the court challenges that surround them.
The ridership increase also follows a 5% fare increase that took effect on July 1, 2024.
A total of 152,582 people rode VRE in February, and numbers presented at last week’s VRE board meeting indicate that March ridership so far has superseded that total by 10,000.
Even so, VRE ridership remains significantly below the 2020 pre-pandemic average of 18,275 passengers per day.
VRE has 14 stations on the Fredericksburg line from Spotsylvania to Union Station in Washington, D.C. There are six additional stations on the Manassas line, which runs through Prince William and Fairfax Counties. The railroad runs 32 trains each way on weekdays, mostly during rush hour.
The 2025 budget includes money for weekend VRE service, but Finucan-Clarkson says there is still no date for starting that service as the railroad continues to work out logistics with several different parties which would be impacted.
This story was updated at 10:30 a.m. on March 26 to correct ridership numbers for February of 2025.
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