The first half of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project could cost $2.64 billion, according to materials prepared by Fairfax County staff that for the first time a firm figure on the project’s wildly varying price tag.
The number is among a handful of details on the planned rail project compiled by staff in response to questions from Lee District Supervisor Dana Kauffman.
The material shows that Fairfax County, a major funding source for the new rail line, has been working with specific cost figures that had until recently been unavailable to the public.
It also dismisses proposals to build the track in a tunnel under Tysons Corner and put the entire project out for competitive bidding, positions that run directly counter to those voiced by some supervisors.
The board was set to discuss the documents in a closed meeting on Monday.
Project officials, after reaching an agreement with contractors earlier this year, said the price of the first 11.6-mile phase of the Metrorail extension could range from $2.4 billion to $2.7 billion. On Monday, project spokeswoman Marcia McAllister said the final number is yet undetermined.
“There are still final adjustments being made in the contract,” she said.
The level of the Federal Transit Administration’s cost-benefit threshold, which determines whether the agency can fund the project, is also offered in the report. Fairfax County staff estimate that figure at “slightly less than” $2.5 billion. FTA spokesman Wes Irvin, however, said that threshold also is undetermined.
Supporters of the Tysons tunnel have been pushing for months for the governor to resurrect the underground track, though state officials and Northern Virginia congressmen say the plan would sink the entire project with greater expense and delays. The group, Tysonstunnel.org, also is calling for competitive bidding.
The materials call assertions that bidding will save taxpayer dollars “dubious” and say Tysonstunnel.org has failed to answer key questions on the project. Review of a tunnel, the report said, would take at least 18 months and would imperil federal dollars.
Tysonstunnel.org president Scott Monett called the report “dismissive of all the hard work we’ve put forward in an effort to rush this project through.”
