The Examiner March 28, 2006 7:00 AM (SF Examiner)

Editorial: Rail project built on deception

By Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - Dulles Rail will surely go down in Fairfax County history as one of the most outsized and cynical boondoggles ever foisted upon county residents.

The first deception occurred sometime after 1999, when Virginia’s Initial Review Committee voted 6-1 to approve bus rapid transit to Dulles International Airport, noting that BRT would move just as many people at a tenth of the cost. IRC never voted for a heavy rail project, but somehow no-bid contracts for a Metro extension were awarded anyway. Backers already knew Phase I of “Dulles Rail” wouldn’t go anywhere near the airport.

The fabrications continued. Fairfax taxpayers were told that half the money would come from the federal government, with slightly higher tolls collected on the Dulles Toll Road to pay the state’s share, and a special tax district funding the local share. Last December, however, Fairfax County Executive Tony Griffin informed the state that the county would pay all cost overruns from the general fund or future bond sales — both of which are primarily financed by residential property taxes.

The draft environmental impact statement estimated that the first 11 miles would cost $1.52 billion, the figure cited by Fairfax County supervisors when they chose heavy rail as the “locally approved option.” Last August it was $1.84 billion — even after significant cuts. Now it’s up to $2 billion — and that’s after project managers rejected an underground tunnel as too expensive and recommended above-ground stations and elevated tracks along Chain Bridge Road and Leesburg Pike, while eliminating the pedestrian bridges needed to get to the stations, 20 rail cars to accommodate the 70,000 projected riders, elevators, escalators, and a parking garage at Weihle Avenue.

A public hearing on these drastic revisions is scheduled tonight at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna.

This ill-conceived project will not only carry far fewer passengers than promised, it will make an aesthetically challenged Tysons Corner even uglier and more pedestrian-unfriendly than it already is now. This project is so far from the Ballston-like ideal originally sold to the public that calling it a bait-and-switch is being charitable.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation and the Fairfax Board of Supervisors have not been honest about the final cost of the largest public works project in Virginia history, who will pay for it, or even what it will look like. The only clear winners are wealthy Tysons landowners who will be allowed higher density allowances with Metro in place.

In an effort to bypass the increasingly uncertain federal approval process, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has just cut a shady deal with the state to assume responsibility for both the state and federal share by dramatically increasing tolls on the 12-mile Dulles Toll Road despite the fact that motorists were promised in 1984 that tolls would be eliminated once the road was paid for. But what’s another deception in a project that’s been built on nothing but lies from the beginning?

Examiner

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