Dulles has been running mobile lounges since 1962. They were supposed to be temporary. Sixty-four years later, a $22.5 billion plan finally retires them, along with most of the rest of the airport, and the ripple effects land squarely on Reston, Herndon, and the Dulles Corridor.

Graham and Kathy break down the Dulles transformation plan: more than five million square feet of new or renovated space, the replacement of Concourses C and D, Concourse E opening later this year with fourteen new United gates, an extended AeroTrain, a new central walking tunnel, a much larger customs facility, and a proposed parking garage of roughly 32,000 spaces. The Saarinen terminal facade survives. The two-year timeline that got announced does not survive contact with the construction schedule, and we explain why most of this work does not start until 2027.

We also get into the underlying master plan math: Dulles moving from about 27 million annual passengers today to roughly 45 million by 2045, using the existing runways, with gate counts climbing from 130 toward 154 by 2040. Then the local question. What does doubling an airport do to Route 28 and Innovation Station, to the Herndon-Monroe corridor north of the toll road, and to Reston, which has already been absorbing a decade of this pressure?

Before that, Fairfax County Public Schools is rolling out new student ID cards for the 2026-27 year. Every student wears one through the school day. Bus riders tap on and tap off. The cards carry a photo, name, school, a QR code, and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. We talk about the friction it adds, the independence it takes away, and the case for it that changed how we were thinking about it.

Plus, the Cardboard Boat Regatta returns to Lake Anne Plaza on Saturday August 8, and you told us which Reston and Herndon intersections you hate most.

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