Northern Virginia residents have repeatedly been told that the no-bid Dulles Rail project now under construction will be financed by the federal government (50 percent), the Commonwealth of Virginia (25 percent), and a special tax district for Tysons Corner landowners (25 percent).
Here’s the truth: Drivers on the Dulles Toll Road (DTR) will be the primary source of funding for mass transit they won’t use. Worse, in addition to $5.25 billion in capital costs (not a fixed sum because Phase 2 is still in preliminary engineering), financing and operating costs will push the real price tag of this 23-mile boondoggle to $18 billion and possibly more over the next 50 years.
“I think you’re going to see people willing to pay an additional 50 cents or a dollar to get somewhere on time, particularly to avoid future congestion,” Patricia Nicoson, president of the Dulles Corridor Rail Association, said at a meeting last week in Leesburg on proposed toll increases. People may be willing to pay an extra buck or two, but Nicoson knows full well that the project’s environmental impact study says it won’t reduce congestion.
When voters approved construction of the DTR in 1984, they were promised that tolls would be removed after the revenue bonds were paid off. Since that time, $1 billion has been collected to retire the debt, but the tolls will not be eliminated. And future toll increases diverted to subsidize transit riders will be a lot higher than a dollar. Try $16.75 each way to go less than 10 miles.
Last November, without so much as an independent appraisal, competitive bidding, approval from the General Assembly, or even a public hearing, Gov. Tim Kaine unilaterally handed over this valuable state asset to the unelected, unaccountable political appointees of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) Board.
MWAA is expected to release its bond prospectus on Wall Street this week, complete with a comprehensive traffic and revenue forecast by Falls Church consultant Wilbur Smith Associates that assumes an annual 2.5 percent inflation rate, a pie-in-the-sky assumption while the Federal Reserve continues to print money by the boatload.
DTR tolls are currently 75 cents at the main plaza and 50 cents at the exit ramps. Slowly but surely, like a frog being boiled alive, they will go up. “Revenue-maximizing main line tolls are estimated to be somewhere above $7 in 2010 and somewhere above $12 in 2023,” the report noted. By 2047, tolls are estimated to produce $606.7 million in annual revenue – even though there will be 15.5 million fewer trips then than now.
Remember that initial 50 /25 /25 split? According to the Dulles Corridor Advisory Committee, the source of capital funds (not including financing or operating costs) is now:
Dulles Toll Road: 52.6 percent
Federal government: 17. 1 percent
Fairfax County: 16.1 percent
Commonwealth of Virginia: 5.2 percent
Loudoun County: 4.6 percent
MWAA: 4.1 percent
Despite $4.2 billion in transportation revenue that comes primarily from gas and other vehicle taxes, Virginia officials haven’t provided DTR users with any real alternatives. The Virginia Department of Transportation is so broke it’s already shut down 19 rest stops and informed Northern Virginia officials that there will be no money to expand secondary roads next year.
Trapped without any recourse at the ballot box, toll road users will be gouged for more than half the cost of Dulles Rail while its primary beneficiaries, Metro riders and wealthy Tysons Corner landowners, pay a small fraction of the total costs.
This is as unfair as it is immoral. It should also be illegal.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Washington Examiner’s local opinion editor.
