The project to expand Metrorail to Dulles Airport is quickly turning into one of the biggest transportation boondoggles in recent memory:
Over budget and behind schedule, rail to Dulles International Airport is in trouble.
Planned for more than 40 years, the 23-mile Metro extension from Falls Church to Loudoun County is among the region’s highest transportation priorities. It would eliminate Washington’s unenviable distinction as one of the only major world capitals without rail service to its largest airport. Yet the most critical component to the project’s success — nearly $1 billion in federal funding — remains in doubt. And so does the fate of the rail line itself.
Lots of blame has been hurled about since a Federal Transit Administration report last week placed the cost of Dulles rail’s first phase to Reston at $2.83 billion — an unacceptable sum under federal cost-efficiency rules. The report also predicted that the project would be completed 15 months later than scheduled, meaning that commuters might not take their first ride until March 2014.
Many familiar with the project’s long history say it is on the brink of collapse because of the weight of the nearly dozen entities that have played critical roles over the years. From the tax district of Tysons Corner landowners that will help finance construction to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to Metro to Congress, groups brought their own demands to the table. Each had to be listened to because each was capable, at one time or another, of scuttling the venture.
Many months were lost as those players pursued agendas on such items as station location, pedestrian amenities and the proposed tunnel through Tysons Corner. In so doing, critics say, they diverted their attention from the element essential to the project’s success: federal funding. In the meantime, cost estimates continued to tick upward. The higher they soared, the lower the project’s chances to qualify for federal dollars. To get the federal money, local and state officials have to prove that the project would attract enough riders to merit the cost.
“People have always said: ‘Don’t worry. The money will be there,’ ” said Bob Chase, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, a group that advocates on behalf of businesses for transportation improvements. “It has always been something that’s been pushed to the back burner. Suddenly, the back burner has become the front burner.”
And, suddenly, it may just be too late.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:30 am
The big problem with this project is that the politicians insist upon using a technical approach that has not changed for decades. Metrorail may make some property owners some money, but it is too darn expensive. Not enough bang for the buck. Let’s use some imagination. For example, google “personal rapid transit”.
We need to get the decision authority for such projects out of the hands of politicians, particularly the Federal Government. Why should should the Feds finance a local transit project?
Lets go back to the way we use to do these projects. The user should pay. Let’s sell bonds and pay off the bonds with user fees (you ride, you pay). Here are the options:
1. If the private market does not buy the bonds, the project does not fly.
2. If the private market does buy, and the project flops, private investors lose.
3. If the private buy and the project succeeds, everyone wins.
The politicians regulate the process, but they should not decide. They don’t know enough anyway.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
If they insist on putting it above ground, then it’s better that they don’t build it at all.