D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray on Wednesday pulled his support of an underground rail station at Dulles International Airport, the latest voice to protest the pricier station.
“I have reconsidered my position and we don’t want to wind up with nothing,” the mayor said.
Gray said he changed his mind after meeting with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell who told the mayor that his state couldn’t afford the extra $300 million needed to build the station underground.
That station plan “could imperil the line we’ve been waiting on,” Gray said.
The authority building the 23-mile Metro extension had chosen the underground station instead of an aboveground station at the airport, arguing that it would attract more riders if travelers had a closer station. But its decisions has angered Northern Virginia officials whose communities will be paying for the project.
Gray doesn’t have any direct vote in the new Metro line being built across the Potomac River, but he does appoint three members to the authority board that is building it.
Gray changed his opinion of the station after U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently backed the above-ground station as a way to cut about $1 billion off of the project’s $3.6 billion price tag.
— Freeman Klopott and Kytja Weir
