Phase II of the Dulles Rail project, which will extend Metrorail to Washington Dulles International Airport, is on the financial ropes, so members of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board are resorting to panicky “warnings” in a calculated effort to stick local, state and federal taxpayers with the bill for their blundering. Phase II costs have ratcheted up to $3.5 billion — the original price of the entire Silver Line — and Dulles Toll Road users finally realize they will soon have to pay around $20 per day — or $100 per week — to subsidize this economically indefensible transit project.
The public backlash prompted MWAA to demand $500 million more from Virginia and $1.2 billion more from the federal government — on top of the low-interest federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loans sought by Fairfax and Loudoun counties to build parking garages and the Route 28 station that were not part of the original agreement.
