As its name implies, Dulles Rail was initially sold to the public as a high-priority transit project that would give area travelers convenient Metrorail access to Washington Dulles International Airport, the region’s busiest airport. Indeed, this was repeatedly cited as the main reason for spending more than $5 billion to extend a transit system that was literally falling apart from neglect. The slight detour to Tysons Corner was downplayed as a secondary benefit.
Now we find out that like almost every other aspect of the Dulles Rail project, this too was just another part of the scam.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which took over Phase 2 of the Dulles Rail project after former Gov. Tim Kaine handed over the revenue-producing Dulles Toll Road, is now considering moving the long-planned underground airport station away from the main terminal and putting it next to one of the above-ground parking garages to save $500 million, the cost of tunneling about two miles underground.
But moving the station would mean a longer walk for Metro riders already pressed for time. This walk would follow nearly an hour’s subway ride from downtown Washington, discouraging all but the most resolute luggage-toting passengers from taking Metro to Dulles in the first place.
And since Dulles is already projected to be the second-least busy Metro station in the entire system (the project’s own projections put it just slightly ahead of Arlington Cemetery), this is a “penny wise, but pound foolish” way to save money.
Why would MWAA even think about sabotaging the project’s main goal of getting people to take Metro to the airport? MWAA board member David Speck was quoted as saying, “The costs of the original plan were high enough that we had to consider other options.”
But if the costs to extend Metrorail to the main terminal at Dulles Airport (which have still not yet been publicly released) are so high that they jeopardize the ultimate goal of the entire project, why wasn’t the public told about it before now?
The reason Phase 1, now under construction, and Phase 2 of Dulles Rail were split apart was to hide the project’s enormous cost from taxpayers so that political opposition could not torpedo the project’s real goal: pumping up the real estate holdings of wealthy Tysons Corner landowners.
It was never about getting the public to the airport on time.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
