U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on Thursday sided with Northern Virginia officials in proposing that the Metro station at Washington Dulles International Airport be built aboveground as part of an effort to trim about $1 billion from the rail project’s cost. The proposal ends a month of contentious meetings between the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is overseeing the construction project, and top officials in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, who, along with Dulles Toll Road users, will pay for it.
LaHood’s proposal is a blow to the airports authority, which has been insisting on building the Dulles Metro station underground even though it would cost $330 million more than the aboveground station that Loudoun and Fairfax favor.
The authority has refused to back down from the more expensive option in the face of pressure from local, state and federal officials, staunchly defending its choice as more convenient for travelers and more appropriate given the airport’s famed architectural heritage.
LaHood’s overall proposal would bring the total cost of the second phase of the project to about $2.7 billion, down from estimates as high as $3.8 billion. Original projections in 2005 put the cost nearer $2.5 billion. Without the cost reductions, LaHood told officials that federal financial help would be far harder to secure.
Fairfax and Loudoun officials who are responsible for building parking garages near the planned Metro stations would look to private companies to share the costs and shave an additional $200 million from the project’s price tag. The counties also will seek low-interest federal financing.
The federal financing “is a hope, not something the secretary could promise,” said Fairfax Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova.
Airports authority Chairman Charles Snelling said that he’d bring the proposal back to his board in good faith, but he emphasized that the location of the Dulles Metro station has become overblown in the discussion of overall costs.
“We’ve been saying all along that where the station is only makes a 5 percent difference to the future cost of tolls,” he said.
Bulova, Snelling and Loudoun County Chairman Scott York will bring LaHood’s proposal to their boards in coming weeks. All are expected to report back to LaHood on July 20 with their conclusions.
