A duo of firms has delivered their cost proposal for the first phase of the extension of Metrorail to Dulles, according to a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
MWAA is the lead negotiator in talks with Bechtel Infrastructure and Washington Group International (known as The Dulles Transit Partners) and won’t disclose what price the groups want to build and design the first portion of the rail extension. That phase would run a new track from past the East Falls Church Metro Station to WiehleAvenue. The extension will run 23-miles and cost $4 billion.
Airports Authority spokeswoman Tara Hamilton would not say when the Dulles Transit Partners delivered the proposal. The price figure did not, however, come under the December deadline that project officials earlier sought.
Dulles Transit Partners has already done preliminary engineering for the first phase. The firms were selected through a public-private partnership arrangement.
The long-awaited price tag is a key element in the negotiations and is expected to change significantly before a final agreement is reached. MWAA and the state will use their own undisclosed independent cost estimate as a negotiating tool.
The unexplained hold-up in getting the price from Dulles Transit Partners fits into a larger pattern of delays for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. The groundbreaking on the project may have been delayed as much as a year while the state mulled whether to build an aerial or an underground track through Tysons Corner. Though the governor settled on above-ground rail, local business groups have since revived that discussion in the hopes of bringing back the tunnel.
Federal Transit Administration head James S. Simpson last week delivered a letter to local congressmen that addressed price proposal’s timing, chiding the state for “being over a month late in providing critical cost information.”
“I believe we can all agree that the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project has encountered uncertainties and progress has been slow,” Simpson wrote.
