you just can't do it. There are only two ways in or out of Potomac Yard, the Blue/Yellow Line and Rt. 1. Metro has two problems: 1. the PY station does not have the capacity for event traffic and would need 9-figure upgrades to get there. 2. the system itself is underfunded and needs to secure additional long-term funding (we're talking 9 figures annually) to ensure that the system will be there to support event traffic, among other things. Rt. 1 is already a parking lot in rush hour and the arena would add hundreds of gridlock hours annually. It wouldn't just affect Potomac Yard and Del Ray but everything between I395 and the Beltway, including the airport. Plus drivers have to park somewhere and there won't be enough parking garages to meet the demand, so locals will be subjected to people parking wherever. You can't bus people in because there is nowhere to put a satellite lot that wouldn't stick buses in the same congestion. We had a dry run during the Metro Shutdown and if these problems were fixable, they would have happened then.

Second, the funding plan is sketchy at best. Leonsis is basically trying to get VA to take on all the risk by issuing the bonds and repaying them through additional tax receipts. It would be asinine for VA to accept this deal when Leonsis could self-fund it if he actually wanted too. But he's buds with Youngkin and Youngkin wants to present himself as a can-do guy so we have what essentially amounts to a drug deal.

There are other issues too, but these are the two biggest ones. Thank you for reading this far. It's a complicated topic and I hope I can do it justice in a message board post.