Contradictions Surface in Dulles Rail Talks

Va., Federal Officials Disagree on Dulles

By Amy Gardner

Saturday, January 26, 2008

RELATED BLOG: With Metro Plans Possibly Derailed, What Now?

Federal transportation officials gave incremental approvals to the proposed Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport on many of the same issues that they cited in rejecting it this week, according to letters, memos and interviews.

At several points in the past two years, Federal Transit Administration officials said the project was doing fine on cost and construction management, according to the correspondence and phone calls with Virginia officials.

But Thursday, the tone changed. FTA chief James S. Simpson declared the project unfit for federal funding. And he pointed to many of the issues that project officials and Virginia politicians had thought were settled and done with.

“All indications were pointing to a thumbs-up,” Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said yesterday. “And then it turns out to be a likely thumbs-down.”

But Simpson and other FTA officials said they have been saying for years that the project’s costs were dangerously high, its schedule too long and its management structure precarious.

“No one associated with the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project should be surprised by its escalating costs and risks,” Simpson said yesterday. The FTA and the project managers “have been in communication regarding these challenges.”

But at a meeting Thursday, Simpson stunned Kaine and Northern Virginia’s congressional delegation by saying that the 23-mile extension through Tysons Corner to the airport would not get its $900 million in federal funding without drastic changes in the proposal. Without that money, the project would die.

The opposing views of the negotiations highlight a dramatic contrast between the state officials responsible for building the $5 billion transit project and the federal agency responsible for regulating it. And they show that the two sides either had woeful communication along the way or that the message drastically changed. Taxpayers have spent more than $140 million on the planning stages.

Photo: By Laris Karklis, The Washington Post - June 19, 2007

23-Mile Metro Extension

Kaine and other Virginia officials mentioned specific communications they think contradict the FTA’s assertions. In rejecting the proposal Thursday, the FTA cited the project’s cost, which has ballooned over the years of planning; the ability of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to manage construction of such a large transit project when it has never done so; and the ability of Metro to absorb the extension into a system that is underfunded and needs repairs.

The contradictory evidence dates at least to October 2006, the governor and others said, when the FTA wrote the airports authority a letter declaring the agency fit to serve as the “grantee” for the federal funding the project was seeking.

“FTA has determined that [the airports authority] has or will have the legal, financial and technical capacity to carry out the program,” wrote FTA regional administrator Susan Borinsky.

Similarly, last January, Simpson told two Northern Virginia congressmen in writing that “the only significant outstanding issue at this time” is the project’s cost, seemingly putting to rest any management issues regarding the airports authority or Metro.

And last fall, Simpson and others offered congratulations to state officials by phone after they made $250 million in cuts to the project and said the reduction had settled the cost issue, Kaine said.

“There was no miscommunication,” the governor said. “Those were very direct and positive conversations during the months of October and November.”

FTA officials said project backers misread the significance of those communications. The letter certifying the airports authority was a preliminary step to be followed by a more thorough review of the agency’s “technical capacity” to manage the project, they said.

And the provisional approval on cost reduction was conditional upon the airports authority to provide evidence, such as contractual change orders, that the cuts were real and would be accepted by the contractors. That evidence took months to produce, a senior FTA official said, and arrived at the agency only last week.

Yesterday, Simpson also mentioned a letter sent to the airports authority last week by Metro raising concerns about the authority’s management of the project. The letter, Simpson said, highlights divisions and discord within the consortium of agencies behind the project. And it gives the FTA pause about whether the project is in good hands.

“They should be having a honeymoon period during this point, and they can’t even agree on the eve of their wedding,” he said.

Project backers said they are especially baffled by Simpson’s assertion Thursday that the cost of the project’s first phase exceeds $3 billion and that the project’s cost-effectiveness rating is “low” and its financing rating “medium-low.”

Two independent consultants who reviewed the project in the fall placed the cost at nearly the same amount: $2.59 billion. And an FTA report sent this week to the House Appropriations Committee on transit funding placed the project’s cost-effectiveness rating at “medium-low” and its financing rating at “medium.”

Kaine said his transportation team and the airports authority will work through the weekend to provide a response by Monday to the FTA’s concerns. But he said he is not optimistic that federal funds will be granted.

The next step, he said, is to figure out whether the line can be built without federal money. Another consideration is whether to terminate the builder’s contract, which carries an escalation clause that kicks in Feb. 1 and could increase the cost of the project.

Tagged: Dulles Airport, metro extension

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