A week after Virginia officials decided not to tunnel under Tysons, planners for a $4 billion extension of Metrorail are seeking to make up months of lost time and meet a completion deadline only a few years off.
The Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, a $4 billion plan to construct 23 miles of track to connect D.C. with Dulles Airport, has a first-phase completion date of 2012, and a final completion in 2015. The project saw about five months of delay while officials studied whether the 4-mile portion of the track running through Tysons Corner could be built underground.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine nixed the tunnel idea last week, reasoning that the expensive, slower plan would jeopardize a quarter of the project’s funds due to federal cost-effectiveness standards. Instead, the rail will likely be built on a 40-foot aerial track over Tysons.
Amid widespread public disappointment over the loss of the tunnel, contractors and state officials are now resuming negotiations on an original above-ground plan and hope to have a firm timeline released in mid-October.
Dulles Transit Partners, a group of firms that includes engineering group Bechtel Infrastructure, is on track to be selected as both the designer and builder of the first phase of the project.
“We are going full blast on the contract negotiations with Dulles Transit Partners,” Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer toldThe Examiner on Thursday.
But the progress of the rail extension also hinges on other factors, officials say, including gaining permission to enter final design, achieving full-funding agreement with the federal government, and closing an environmental review process. It’s unclear, at this point, whether those could represent further delays.
