Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld updated the press about SafeTrack’s ninth surge this afternoon. (Photo via Twitter)

The longest surge of Metro’s SafeTrack maintenance plan starts on September 15, with severe restrictions on the western end of Orange Line service.

Riders who normally use the West Falls Church, Dunn Loring, and Vienna stations are in for a transit headache thanks to continuous single tracking and four consecutive weekends of station closures.

Unlike during other surges, when single tracking has meant severely reduced but otherwise regular service, Metro is running what General Manager Paul Wiedefeld called “shuttle train operation” in the work zone between Vienna and West Falls Church. Every 24 minutes, a shuttle train will ferry passengers between the two stations (skipping Dunn Loring in between). At West Falls Church, riders will have to get off and wait for another train to head in toward the District.

“Normally, we would have service every 6 minutes, so you get a sense of the scale of the impact on the customers,” Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said at a press conference this afternoon.

And on the weekends of September 24-25 and October 1-2 all three stations will be closed. Vienna and Dunn Loring will also be shuttered on the weekends of October 8-9 and October 15-16. Free shuttle bus service will replace trains.

“I look at this as a very long snow or weather event where the regular service and people’s regular lives are interrupted in order to do things that need to be done,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ Chair Sharon Bulova. In addition to Metrobus shuttles between Vienna and West Falls Church during rush hours, the Fairfax Connector is adding supplemental express service between Vienna and the Pentagon.

“The good news is from West Falls Church on, through the rest of the Orange Line, the trains will operate at near normal service,” said Wiedefeld.

After a derailment and heat delays, Metro modified the SafeTrack plan last month, adding more weekend closures and extending the length of some of the surges. Wiedefeld said the updated schedule for the remaining six surges will be released in the next “week or so” to give riders adequate time to prepare.