Tysons Corner, Virginia

Tysons or Tysons Corner is a census-designated place (CDP) and unincorporated community in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The word Corner will be dropped from the CDP name in the Summer of 2016. Located in Northern Virginia between the community of McLean and the town of Vienna along the Capital Beltway (I-495), it lies within the Washington Metropolitan Area. Home to two super-regional shopping malls—Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria—and the corporate headquarters of numerous companies such as Gannett (publisher of USA Today), Hilton Worldwide, Freddie Mac, CapitalOne and Booz Allen Hamilton, Tysons is Fairfax County's central business district and a regional commercial center. It has been characterized as a quintessential example of an edge city. The population was 19,627 as of the 2010 census.

History

Known originally as Peach Grove, the area received the designation Tysons Crossroads after the Civil War. William Tyson, from Cecil County, Maryland, purchased a tract of land from A. Lawrence Foster. Tyson, a Maryland native, served as postmaster of the now discontinued Peach Grove Post Office 1854–1866. The Peach Grove Post office was established Tuesday, April 22, 1851.

Tysons Corner station

Tysons Corner (also known as Tysons Central 123 and Tysons I & II during planning phases) is a rapid transit station on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro in Tysons Corner, Virginia. One of four Metro stations in Tysons Corner, it is one of the five stations comprising the first phase of the Silver Line, which opened on July 26, 2014.

Station layout

Like other stations on the Silver Line, Tysons Corner has an elevated island platform and two tracks. Access is provided by two entrances, one at street level at the northwest corner of the intersection of Chain Bridge Road and Tysons Boulevard and the other on the southwest corner; the siting of the railway viaduct on the north side of Chain Bridge Road as well as pedestrian safety means that entrance to the station from this corner is by a pedestrian overpass to a mezzanine above platform level.

History and location

Tysons Corner station opened as part of the first phase of the Silver Line to Wiehle – Reston East in 2014. In the planning stages, controversy ensued over whether to build the Metro in a tunnel or on an elevated viaduct through Tysons Corner. It was eventually decided that the majority of the line would be built above ground, but the station was built partially below ground in order to send trains through a short tunnel connecting the line's Route 7 and Route 123-paralleling sections.