Driving east on Elden Street past Herndon Centre, toward Fairfax County Parkway, you pass the Sprouts Farmers Market and LA Fitness lot, the IHOP pad and a row of utility poles. The road along this stretch carries between 17,000 and 26,000 vehicles a day, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation's project page. That same page, last updated September 23, 2026, now has a date for the first visible work in the corridor. Utility relocation is scheduled to begin in late fall 2026.
The page's title still reads "Elden Street widening and underground utilities duct bank." The work starting this season won't put anything underground. VDOT now describes the aerial utility relocation as "in-kind," meaning lines that run on poles today will run on poles afterward, moved to make room for a wider road. Keeping those wires overhead is the reason the project is moving at all.
The vote that kept the poles
East Elden was originally planned with an underground duct bank, a buried conduit system that would have taken the lines off the poles for good. That plan ended in May 2024. FFXnow reported that VDOT, which administers the project, told the Town of Herndon in January 2024 that the total price had climbed to $89 million. Herndon's share would have come to roughly $24 million.
Dropping the project wasn't a realistic choice either. FFXnow reported that the town had already lined up $61 million in federal, state and regional funding, and that walking away would have brought "severe penalties." VDOT confirmed the road could still be built as designed with the utilities left above ground. Without the duct bank, the estimate came down to about $71 million, an amount the grant money once set aside for undergrounding could cover. The Town Council approved the change on May 28, 2024, on its consent agenda.
This is how the price has moved:
| Point in time | Estimate | What it covered |
|---|---|---|
| Earlier town estimate | $57.3 million | Widening plus underground duct bank |
| January 2024 VDOT projection | $89 million | Widening plus underground duct bank |
| May 2024, after the council vote | About $71 million | Widening with utilities above ground |
| VDOT page, September 2026 | $73.21 million | Current project total |
The current total is about $16 million below the undergrounding version. VDOT splits it into $8.83 million for preliminary engineering, $14.4 million for right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation, and $49.98 million for construction. Funding comes from federal and state programs, including Revenue Sharing and Smart Scale, along with the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and local sources. The $14.4 million line includes the utility work beginning this fall.
A schedule that has moved before
Town staff tied that trade directly to the calendar. In the memo FFXnow quoted, staff wrote that "by maintaining utilities above ground instead of relocating them underground, the project will be enabled to be scheduled for construction bid advertisement in year 2027."
The current schedule matches that memo, which is new for this project. Earlier dates have slipped more than once. A Northern Virginia Transportation Authority status report dated January 2021 listed the duct bank for advertisement that year and project completion in 2024. In mid-2024, VDOT's page still showed widening starting in early 2025, while town staff were already telling the council it would be another two years.
Here is the full sequence as VDOT lists it now:
- Design public hearing, October 2016
- Design approval, October 2017
- Start of right-of-way acquisition, May 2019
- Underground duct bank advertised for construction, June 2022
- Start of utility relocation, late fall 2026
- Widening advertised for construction, late 2027
- Start of widening construction, mid-2028
Item four is left over from the undergrounding plan the council later dropped. Two more lines on the page sum up where things stand. The status is "In design," and the estimated completion date is "To be determined."
So the crews that show up this season are the start of a gap. Lines get moved in late 2026, and the road itself doesn't change until mid-2028 at the earliest. Expect roughly a year and a half of a corridor that has been prepared for widening but not widened.
What the finished road is meant to look like
All of that prep is for a corridor that will look quite different from today's. In its scope, VDOT lists:
- About a quarter mile of Elden Street widened from four lanes to six between Herndon Parkway and Laurel Way
- Cycle tracks from Herndon Parkway to Fairfax County Parkway, which VDOT describes as combining a separated path with on-street bike lane infrastructure
- Bike lanes from Monroe Street to Herndon Parkway
- Access management controls between Van Buren Street and Herndon Parkway
- A new traffic signal at the western entrance to Herndon Centre
- A new bridge over Sugarland Run in place of the current box culvert, for better stream flow
- Improved signalized intersections, pedestrian upgrades, and landscaped medians where feasible
FFXnow's 2024 summary, based on the town's plans, adds a raised median, dedicated turn lanes as far as Van Buren Street, updated bus stop amenities and wider sidewalks. Near Monroe Street the road narrows to two lanes with a left-turn lane.
Every item on that list sits under the same overhead lines. The cycle tracks, the planted medians and the new Sugarland Run bridge will all be built beside relocated poles, because the version of the plan that cleared the wires is the one that was cut.
Herndon Centre, at the signal
Herndon Centre at 494 Elden Street is the business stop most affected by these plans. The new signal at its western entrance is one of the few changes VDOT names at a specific driveway, and the access management segment between Van Buren Street and Herndon Parkway covers the approaches around it.
The center is filling up in the meantime. Its owner's current tenant list includes Sprouts Farmers Market, LA Fitness, IHOP and Chicken Salad Chick. Flame Japanese Hibachi and Masala Pizza & Bitezz are listed as coming soon, which leaves one space open. Both new restaurants will open on today's Elden Street, with today's turns in and out. The signalized entrance comes later in the sequence.
VDOT's project page doesn't list lane closure dates, work hours, a duration for the utility phase, or driveway-by-driveway access changes for this stretch. Its public involvement section lists the October 2016 design hearing and no project meeting in 2026. The Town of Herndon's East Elden page still describes the project as in engineering design and features the 2016 and 2017 public engagement. For now, the September 2026 milestones on VDOT's project page are the schedule to check, and they will likely be the first place a utility work notice shows up.
If you own a home anywhere near East Elden, from the Monroe Street end to Fairfax County Parkway, a road project with a start date and no finish date can raise questions about when to list and how to present your home. Marnie Schaar & Associates has been following this corridor's timeline and can show you how buyers are weighing homes in this part of Herndon. Request a complimentary home valuation, and we'll walk you through what the next few construction seasons could mean for your plans.