Marcia McAllister‘s career in journalism, politics and transportation spans more than four decades in her hometown of Atlanta and in the Northern Virginia areas. As an editor and reporter in Atlanta she covered the civil rights movement, state and presidential politics and the design, construction and opening of Atlanta’s MARTA Metrorail system. During the Carter Administration, she served as a communications special assistant at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a transportation advisor in the office of the Secretary of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration. She worked in several congressional campaigns.  A free-lance writer for the Washington Post, the New York Times and local magazines for eight years in the 1980 and 1900s, focusing on transportation and development in DC, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties—particularly the boom times for Reston and Tysons Corner.  She wrote her first story on proposed rail to Dulles for the Post in 1984.    She is a former editor of the Gazette and business editor of the former Journal Newspapers. As a reporter and executive editor of the former Fairfax Times chain for 15 years she won numerous Virginia Press Association awards for her covering of 9-11, the Washington sniper, land use and transportation including the ongoing efforts to build rail in the Dulles Corridor. She has been a communications manager for the Dulles Rail Project for almost 10 years.

 

Marcia lived in the Tysons Corner area for more than 30 years. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism with a minor in political science from Georgia State University. She is a member of Trinity United Methodist Church in McLean.  A graduate of Leadership Atlanta, she was a founder of Leadership Fairfax.

 

She was married to the late Mason McAllister, a fellow journalist.  She has three children and four granddaughters, including a six-year-old who calls the Silver Line her “Grandma’s train.”