Any hopes that the federal government, so recently stung by the implosion of the housing and credit markets, would finally kill the outrageously bloated Dulles Rail project were dashed for good last week when lame duck Transportation Secretary Mary Peters gave her final blessing to this $5.2 billion-plus boondoggle.
It was like 2008 never happened.
Last year, Federal Transit Administration officials wisely refused to approve the project for funding, citing its low cost-effectiveness rating, the fact that the unelected Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board has no experience managing complex transit projects, and Metro’s own deteriorating physical condition.
None of these major objections have been remedied, but Peters somehow decided it was a good idea to reverse her department’s position at the last minute and throw another $900 million away.
The incoming administration will likely not change this Bush administration decision. President-elect Barack Obama wants to spend a trillion dollars to stimulate the economy, and much of it will go to already highly-subsidized transit systems like Metro that find themselves in hot financial water. The more irresponsible they’ve been with public funds, the bigger their coming reward.
The fix was in from the beginning, when state officials simply ignored a 6-to-1 vote by the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Initial Review Committee to run a much cheaper bus rapid transit (BRT) system out to Dulles International Airport and started planning the current heavy rail project instead. A judge in Fairfax County refused to hear a lawsuit challenging this illegal bait-and-switch.
Meanwhile, a small group of wealthy landowners in Tysons Corner hatched a plot to route the new Metrorail extension right past their own property. Fairfax Board chairman Kate Hanley and successor Gerry Connolly, who will soon be seated in the new Congress, were all too happy to accept campaign donations in return for picking heavy rail as the “locally approved option” – even though it cost ten times more than BRT.
A new Metro station even suddenly appeared on the map right in front of Connolly’s own employer. Fat-cat landowners then lobbied Connolly for higher densities that will earn them billions of dollars, even though their tax liabilities are limited to just $400 million..
A no-bid contract with Dulles Transit Partners – a consortium that includes Bechtel, which more than doubled the cost of Boston’s “Big Dig” – and Gov. Tim Kaine’s unilateral decision to hand over the revenue-producing Dulles Toll Road to MWAA without the General Assembly’s approval were next.
At the urging of Northern Virginia’s congressional delegation, Dulles Rail got a legislative exemption from federal cost/benefit requirements. But there was still hope that the feds would refuse to play the game. No more.
A study by the Washington Council of Governments determined that just one in 200 air passengers will ride Dulles Rail to its final destination, with the airport station projected to have the lowest head count of all 75 Metro stations – including the all-but-deserted one at Arlington Cemetery.
Dulles Rail has been characterized by unprecedented secrecy regarding the scope of the work, completion dates, and cost and escalation formulas – all of which experts say are critical to project oversight – as well as deviations from standard contracting practices that should never have been allowed in a public project.
When it’s finally built, Fairfax County residents will have ugly concrete pillars running down one of their major arterials, an hour-plus ride to the airport because of the added Tysons stops, 600,000 more vehicular trips generated by the added density that will more than offset any increase in transit riders, outrageously jacked-up tolls on the Dulles Toll Road – and bond indebtedness as far as the eye can see.
Dulles Rail is the most expensive transit project ever proposed anywhere in the United States, but both the project’s final environmental statement and projections by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments confirmed that by 2030, the area’s major highways will be gridlocked anyway, with or without Dulles Rail.
But thanks to Dulles Rail, there won’t be any money to fix it – or anything else.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor. She can be reached by email at: [email protected]
