Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli – never one to mince words or hold back his opinions – has waded into the ongoing fray over the Rail-to-Dulles project with some remarkably blunt comments.
“I hope they don’t do Phase 2,” he said on a recent radio appearance on WMAL, referring to the second leg of the project that would extend from Wiehle Avenue in Fairfax through the airport to Ashburn.
“Loudoun County is waking up to what Fairfax never did, and that is the economic boondoggle versus the transportation benefits that you get – cost-benefit just is not there,” he said.
Loudoun is exploring the consequences on the project should it withdraw its funding; under the agreed-to formula at this point, financing the second phase would be split between the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) at 4 percent, Fairfax at 16 percent, Loudoun at 5 percent, and Dulles toll road revenue at 75 percent.
Costs for Phase 2 are estimated at about $3.8 billion after initial projections of $2.5 billion.
Cuccinelli also said he was keeping a close eye on the MWAA board’s vote to require a union-friendly project labor agreement (PLA) for the second leg of the project.
“I’m sort of hair-trigger loaded to deal with that if that problem pops its head up,” he said.
Dulles Transit Partners, the design-build contractor for the first leg of the project that will run from East Falls Church to the eastern edge of Reston, voluntarily adopted a project labor agreement for that portion, but the deal did exempt merit shop contractors from agreeing to it.
