The Dulles Rail Death Knell

A Region Stunned at Loss of Future Economic Engine Seeks to Salvage or Rethink Project

By Amy Gardner, Michael Laris

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Regional business and political leaders have looked to a rail connection between the nation’s capital and its premier airport as more than a congestion reliever. It was to be an organizing principle around which Northern Virginia would grow.

The 23-mile Metrorail extension from Falls Church to Dulles International Airport, which regulators declared unfit for federal funding last week, was expected to ferry 60,000 passengers a day along Virginia’s busiest jobs corridor. It was supposed to stimulate a new, less auto-dependent generation of development, particularly in suburban Tysons Corner. And by slowing the paralyzing increase of traffic of the past 20 years, it would allow the region’s astonishing economic growth and prosperity to continue for years to come.

“It’s our whole growth strategy,” said William D. Lecos, president of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce. “You have 200,000 more people and 400,000 more jobs coming to Fairfax in the next 25 years. You can’t put them on the same dirt you put the last 20 years’ worth on. So you have to grow differently.”

Travelers, shoppers and office workers — interviewed at the airport, in parking lots and in Tysons area strip malls — said they were stunned by the Federal Transit Administration’s announcement Thursday that the $5 billion rail line would not qualify for federal dollars without drastic changes in price and management. Dulles rail was counting on $900 million from the FTA, and state officials have said all along that, without that money, the project would die.

“This is a major airport. For it not to have any mass transit connection is just asinine. It’s insane. It doesn’t make sense,” said Mike Wardlaw, an engineer and frequent flier who works in Arlington. “You can always find a reason not to do something if there’s money involved. It’s shortsighted. It’s the classic bureaucratic ploy of putting off until tomorrow what you should do today — and have someone else pay for it later.”

For some, the allure of rail is to reach the airport. For others, it connects workers with their jobs along a booming corridor of technology companies, law firms and other employers. And for others, it creates an opportunity to create a new, nicer place at Tysons Corner, a sprawling 1,500-acre shopping and office district that planners envision as a Metro-connected downtown of streets, sidewalks, high-rise offices and apartments.

“It will destroy Tysons if we don’t get something like that in, whether it’s aboveground or underground,” said Bettina Lawton, a trust and estate lawyer who was shopping for office supplies near one of four planned stations for Tysons. “We need to get the traffic off the road or the whole economy here is just gonna get choked up, and you can’t have that. This is the economic engine for the entire state.”

Political leaders, including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), remain pessimistic that the federal government will change its mind. But they are not done fighting. Yesterday, at the urging of U.S. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters agreed to discuss what Warner and Kaine view as contradictions between FTA chief James S. Simpson’s assessment of the project’s health last week and an FTA report sent to Congress a few days earlier that rated the project in a way that meets the criteria for federal money.

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

23-Mile Metro Extension

Warner and Kaine also cited FTA consultant reports showing cost estimates that conflict with statements made by Peters in their meeting with her and Simpson last week.

“That has got to be cleared up,” Warner said. “We need to bring together the two principals so they can review documents which, in my judgment and I think in the judgment of others, are in conflict with the representations both oral and written made by the administration.”

Simpson declined to address Warner’s and Kaine’s concerns, saying in a statement that “continued focus on items such as these does not address the significant risks inherent with this project nor does it help to move the project closer to reality.”

But a senior FTA official said the report sent to Congress has not been updated since 2006 and does not reflect the project’s deteriorated status. And he said the consultant reports do not reflect the additional risk of the project, which has caused the FTA to increase the cost estimate. The process of putting a dollar value on risk occurs with all projects seeking FTA funding, the official said.

Warner also said he has asked colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee to look into the apparent conflict. In the meantime, the Kaine administration has negotiated what the governor called a “steady state” with the contractor, delaying a cost escalation clause in the construction contract that was to take effect Feb. 1.

More than $140 million in state and federal dollars have been spent on the project, and Kaine was facing the decision of terminating the construction contract to avoid incurring further costs on a project that may be dead. The contractor consortium, led by Bechtel, was willing to renegotiate because “they want the project to go forward, too,” Kaine said.

Northern Virginia political and business leaders are steadfast in their belief that the rail line must happen — with or without federal funding.

Clark Tyler, chairman of the Tysons Corner Land Use Task Force, said he wanted the 36-member panel to continue its charge. The task force has spent three years and more than $1 million in Fairfax County money studying how to transform Tysons into an urban place.

Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said, “We need multi-modal transportation, and we needed it yesterday.”

Similarly, landowners in Tysons have spent millions of dollars on legal fees and architectural renderings to ready their property for development.

“We have spent five or six years preparing for what they told us was a reality,” said Jonathan Cherner, co-owner of Cherner Automotive Group on Route 7 in Tysons Corner. “The whole region has been preparing for the eventuality of mass transit for years.”

Cherner and other landowners are joining the fight to reverse the FTA’s decision. They will run a $100,000, full-page ad in The Washington Post on Tuesday urging President Bush to intervene.

Local government leaders have joined the fight. The Northern Virginia Regional Commission, a coalition of 14 local governments, voted overwhelmingly to urge the FTA to reconsider. And Connolly said he will introduce a similar resolution tomorrow to the Fairfax board.

In the meantime, figuring out how to make rail happen without the federal government is moving to the forefront.

One option would be to sell the Dulles Toll Road and use the proceeds to make up the federal funding gap. The highway is operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is managing the rail project and was supposed to use toll revenue to pay for a large chunk of the project’s second phase. The $2.6 billion first phase, for which Virginia is seeking the federal funding, would extend from Falls Church to Wiehle Avenue in Reston. The second phase would go to the airport and beyond into Loudoun County.

Kaine said it is premature to talk about privatizing the toll road, which opponents say is a bad idea because the state-owned asset is so valuable. But others say state leaders must not let Dulles rail die.

“Given the stakes, it’s hard to believe it’s gone for good,” said Lecos, the Fairfax chamber president. “Because there are no alternatives.”

Staff writer Robert Thomson contributed to this report.

Tagged: Dulles Airport, metro extension

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