The Federal Transit Administration again has delayed a review of the Dulles rail project after Virginia officials were another six weeks late in delivering critical contract documents, an FTA spokesman said Tuesday.
An appraisal planned for May 22 has been pushed to June 12, spokesman Wes Irvin said.
“[The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation] has followed their typical course of being significantly delayed in providing documents essential for us to be able to do a thorough review of the Dulles rail project,” he said.
The review is one of two the FTA planned that would play a large part in determining whether the agency signs off on $900 million in federal funds for the first half of the Metrorail expansion. The separate independent review already is under way.
The money would likely determine whether the initial 11.6-mile leg of the 23-mile rail sinks or moves forward, and its approval remains the largest uncertainty of the mammoth transit project.
In question is whether the rail line will serve enough riders to justify its up to $2.7 billion price tag, and whether project officials have struck key elements from federal consideration to artificially bring down the total cost.
The FTA had planned its review in mid-March but put it off because Virginia officials were three months late in handing over contract documents. That delay was in large part due to protracted contract negotiations in which government negotiators worked to bring down the contractors’ price proposal.
Now, the state and contractors — Bechtel Infrastructure and Washington Group International — have reached an agreement to design and build the rail.
But even though the talks ended in late March, the state took another six weeks to deliver the documents to the FTA, according to Irvin.
“We’re just not looking at the terms and conditions of the contract,” he said. “We’re drilling down into them to see what they’ve agreed to. Most importantly, have things been eliminated from it that cut to the core of the riding public and taxpayers’ needs?”
No one who could speak for the project or the Department of Rail and Public Transportation could be reached Tuesday.
