The Kaine administration expects to respond today to the Federal Transit Administration’s damning assessment of the planned extension of Metrorail to Dulles airport in an eleventh-hour bid to save the extension’s funding, though privately many officials and staff say there is little to no hope the governor’s appeal will be successful.

Gov. Tim Kaine will seek to rebut the FTA’s reasoning on why it can’t commit a critical $900 million to the rail’s first 11.6-mile phase, chiefly that it doesn’t meet a threshold for cost and ridership. Without the money, the project in its current form is almost certainly dead.