The Federal Transit Administration this month spurned supporters of a Metrorail tunnel under Tysons Corner in two separate reports, challenging the quality of multimillion-dollar engineering work for the underground track and refusing to open up the proposal for new consideration.
The conclusions from the FTA represent another blow to the local movement to bring back the tunnel plan and demonstrate the agency’s unwillingness to entertain serious changes to the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project this late in the planning process, as well as their lack of faith in the independent tunnel engineering.
Gov. Tim Kaine in September killed the much-favored tunnel, which would have carried about 3.4 miles of the 23-mile rail expansion through Tysons, after warnings that associated cost increases and delays would put $900 million in federal funding at risk. Current plans call for an almost entirely above-ground track.
Tunnel supporters, organized under the banner of Tysonstunnel.org, commissioned new engineering documents to show how the tunnel could be created. Those documents were sent to local, state and federal officials, including the FTA.
“It appears that successful large-bore tunneling through the Tysons Corner commercial district segment of the proposed Metrorail extension is, at best, of questionable feasibility, significant additional cost, and would cause schedule delays of significant of magnitude,” Herman Shipman, an acting FTA regional administrator, wrote in a May 18 memo accompanying a report on the Tysons tunnel engineering work.
The report indicated a tunnel segment, at $875 million, would be $298 million more expensive than the aerial track. The findings back up the work of engineering firm Carter & Burgess, which reached similar negative conclusions on the tunnel proposal.
Tysonstunnel.org President Scott Monett said the group is still reading the report but initially pointed to the lack of an estimate on how much could be saved by competitive bidding for the project, which the group has also advocated.
“Without a competitive bid we won’t know what the real price is,” he said.
Tunnel supporters had also petitioned the FTA both to reopen the environmental review process for Dulles rail to include a tunnel and inform Virginia officials that the state’s pending contract to design and build the rail failed to comply with federal procurement law. In a May 23 letter to attorney Peter Rosen, FTA Deputy Chief Counsel Scott Biehl denied both requests.
