How did you get to work this morning? A lot of you probably drove,
as I did. Some of you may have walked or biked, taking advantage of the
beautiful weather we've had this week. And a number of you, I suspect,
took the bus. Perhaps you bused to West Falls Church to catch the
Metro into DC. Or maybe you took a bus directly to, say, the Pentagon
or Crystal City.
You may not realize it, but if you take one of Reston's commuter
buses, you have RCA to thank for it. Back in its early days, RCA led
the way in helping our citizens make their way to work.
I've talked before about the pioneer generation of Restonians who
built our community into what it is today. But for those of you who are
newer residents, you may not realize that when I say they "built"
Reston, I mean it literally. In the late 1960s and into the 70s, our
beloved community was largely hypothetical. Most of the services and
institutions we take for granted today did not exist then. We had Lake
Anne, and we had Hunters Woods, and we had a few housing developments
around them. But for most everything else, we were on our own.
 |
| Riders board the Reston Commuter Bus in 1969. (Photo from the RCA Archives) |
| Credit
RCA
|
Those pioneer Restonians quickly realized that if they wanted
something, they'd have to create it themselves. RCA sprung up into that
void, and aimed to help the community create what it needed. And one
of the things Reston needed was a bus service.
Some Restonians were fulfilling Bob Simon's vision of "living,
working, and playing" in Reston. But then as now, plenty of our
citizens lived here and worked elsewhere. And if you were a Restonian
in the late '60s who worked in DC, for example, your options for getting
to work were pretty much limited to driving. Metrorail didn't exist
yet, and there were no buses running out to our sylvan outpost.
Those pioneer Restonians wanted a bus line. And so RCA stepped up and created one. . . .
Clear here to read the rest of Colin's weekly Reston Patch blog post.
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