A consultant that issued a scathing report on the proposed Metrorail tunnel under Tysons Corner has multimillion-dollar business ties and is seeking a major contract with the same agency it conducted the study for, a situation that critics say has precluded Texas-based Carter & Burgess from providing a fair, independent review of the tunnel.
The relationship between the firm and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, an agency set to take over the 23-mile extension of Metrorail to Loudoun County, has raised questions about conflict of interest. The report was earlier framed by the head of Virginia’s transit agency as an “independent consultant assessment.”
The controversy centers the battle on how the track will run through Tysons Corner. Top Virginia officials say the idea of tunneling under Tysons has been dead since September, after federal transit officials warned additional costs and delays would risk $900 million in federal funds. Carter & Burgess recently issued a blistering report on the tunnel that undergirds the state’s argument on why the concept is too risky.
But past and possible future business ties between Carter & Burgess and the airports authority, which will soon take over the project, have raised questions of the firm’s impartiality. The agreement to conduct the $200,000 study was penned with MWAA, not with the commonwealth, as Virginia officials had earlier implied.
The airports authority is the lead negotiator in talks with Bechtel and Washington Group International to build the first half of the project — including an aboveground track through Tysons.
Carter & Burgess, meanwhile, is vying to win a massive management contract with MWAA to provide it consulting support for the rail project, according to sources who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation.
A Carter & Burgess spokesman would not comment on Wednesday.
MWAA and Carter & Burgess already have multimillion-dollar ties: The airports authority has awarded the firm a $16.9 million contract to design a fourth runway at Dulles Airport, as well as $2.7 million contract for consulting services on the Metrorail project and the Dulles Toll Road, according to MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton.
“This consultant’s contracts with MWAA may suggest to some lack of independence necessary to fairly evaluate the tunnel proposal,” Fairfax County supervisors wrote in a joint motion passed Monday.
