Potomac Yard station in the context of "Infill station"

The Washington Metro, often abbreviated as the Metro and formally the Metrorail, is a rapid transit system serving the Washington metropolitan area of the United States. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which also operates the Metrobus service under the Metro name. Opened in 1976, the network now includes six lines, 98 stations, and 130 miles (210 km) of route.

Metro serves Washington, D.C. and the states of Maryland and Virginia. In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery and Prince George's counties; in Virginia, to Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties, and to the independent city of Alexandria. The system's most recent expansion, which is the construction of a new station (and altering the line), serving Potomac Yard, opened on May 19, 2023. It operates mostly as a deep-level subway in more densely populated parts of the D.C. metropolitan area (including most of the District itself), while most of the suburban tracks are at surface level or elevated. The longest single-tier escalator in the Western Hemisphere, spanning 230 feet (70 m), is located at Metro's deep-level Wheaton station.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA /wəˈmɑːtə/ wə-MAH-tə), commonly referred to as Metro, is a tri-jurisdictional public transit agency that operates transit services in the Washington metropolitan area. WMATA provides a rapid transit service under the Metrorail brand, fixed-route bus service under the Metrobus brand, and paratransit service under the MetroAccess brand. In 2024, the system had a ridership of 283,145,700, or about 824,500 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2025.

The agency participates in a regional transportation planning and the execution of transit infrastructure projects. Recent projects include an infill station serving Potomac Yard and an extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport.

Potomac Yard is a neighborhood in Northern Virginia that straddles southeastern Arlington County and northeastern Alexandria, Virginia, located principally in the area between U.S. Route 1 and the Washington Metro Blue Line /Yellow Line tracks, or the George Washington Memorial Parkway, depending on the definition used. The area was home to (and takes its name from) what was once one of the busiest rail yards on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The "Potomac Yard" name is also used to refer to several developments in the area, especially the Potomac Yard Center power center and a Washington Metro station.

In 2018, Amazon.com, Inc. announced plans to locate part of its "HQ2" second headquarters project in Northern Virginia, specifically in the newly re-branded cross-jurisdictional neighborhood of National Landing, which local and state officials said would include Potomac Yard as well as nearby parts of southern Arlington, including the Crystal City neighborhood that will be the hub of the HQ2 development. Amazon initially planned to split HQ2 between National Landing and Long Island City, New York, but opposition from New York officials led Amazon to cancel that portion of the project, leaving National Landing as the only HQ2 site.