State officials hope to keep the Federal Transit Administration from considering nearly a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of road, equipment and station improvements as it weighs approval of funding for the extension of Metrorail to Dulles.
The expenditures range from $73.7 million for major upgrades on Route 7 to $1.5 million to bring new stations up to Metro’s recently adopted wireless Internet standards, according to a list provided by the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project on Tuesday.
The decision is geared toward bringing the project within the FTA’s strict cost-benefit standards by lowering what the agency will consider to be the total cost of the project. With the initial phase of the project slated to cost as much as $2.7 billion, the new rail line is considered very expensive for the 5.7 million riders it will serve a year.
The maneuvering could prove critical for a project already facing the possibility of being ineligible for a major source of its funding. The loss of some $900 million in federal dollars would likely halt the planned Metrorailline for the foreseeable future.
State officials are seeking to exclude 15 improvements worth $224.9 million from the calculations of the total project costs. The move has yet to be vetted by the federal government, which is still weighing whether to commit its share of funding.
The items haven’t been struck from the rail extension, project spokeswoman Marcia McAllister said. Instead, commonwealth and Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority officials hope to fund the items through state and local dollars.
“The scope of the project hasn’t changed,” she said. “Nothing is coming out.”
The FTA is undertaking two separate reviews of the transit project and plans to ensure that critical components haven’t been removed, spokesman Wes Irvin said.
“If we deem they are necessary for the overall daily operation of the project, we’ll tell them to put [the items] back in,” he said.
Bechtel Infrastructure and Washington Group have inked a preliminary agreement to design and build the first phase.
