Fairfax and Loudoun counties are asking for the bill on how much the Silver Line will cost them to operate before they agree to build the rest of the Metro line. The two counties are slated to help pay for the $2.8 billion construction costs of the remaining half of the 23-mile Dulles Rail line.
But in the longer term, they also are on the hook for a major portion of the annual operating costs of running it as part of the Metro system. That means additional costs every year.
Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion Tuesday to seek how much the line will cost the county to run for the next 15 years — both with and without Loudoun’s involvement in case its neighbor pulls out. Last week, Loudoun County leaders asked for an estimate of the bill before they have to decide whether to fund construction of the second phase.
“It’s important we have everything in front of us,” said Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield. “Clearly you need to understand the long-term costs.”
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The jurisdictions that Metro serves subsidize the transit system’s annual operating costs because riders’ fares don’t cover the full cost of running trains and buses. In the next budget cycle, taxpayers are being asked to pay $711 million, but the number will rise as the system grows.
Fairfax and Loudoun want to determine the Silver Line’s costs before they make a decision on whether to build the second phase of the line, which would extend from Reston to Washington Dulles International Airport and beyond. That deadline could be as early as June.
But those numbers may be hard to come by so soon.
Metro has said it expects the initial ramp-up costs of hiring and training workers to be $20 million next year, before the line begins running. The first year of operation would cost about $43 million. Additional estimates haven’t been made public.
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And those numbers haven’t been divvied up to show which jurisdictions would pay which portion of those costs. Overall, Virginia generally pays about 30 percent of the rail subsidy costs, but the formula for determining who pays what is based on ridership, population and the number of stations, among other factors, so the weight would shift when the line opened.
Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said officials have had to update the ridership and cost numbers because of the change to the location of the airport spot, but haven’t received the new numbers that will help determine the costs from the Federal Transit Administration.
