Fairfax County Board Chairman Sharon Bulova is known as a pretty collected woman, but the controversy over where to build the Dulles Rail Metro stop has gotten under her skin.
Ask her and her board, and the choice is pretty obvious: an above-ground station a little further from the airport terminal is preferable to an underground station closer to the terminal that costs $330 million more. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority disagrees, saying the underground station is more convenient for travelers and preserves the views of the Eero Saarinen-designed Dulles terminal.
On Tuesday, Bulova set out to find out just how terribly inconvenient an above-ground station would be. Her spokesman, Clayton Medford, recounted their adventure thusly, with some pleasantly uncharacteristic snark and a few pictures:
Standing near where the above-ground terminal would be, their troops “marveled at the beautiful and historic Dulles terminal opposite the North Garage, a view travelers could not enjoy if they arrive at the Dulles Station underground.”
They chose to walk to the terminal via an underground walkway, as opposed to an available shuttle bus.
“The group descended and entered a well-lit and climate controlled facility with moving sidewalks and signs pointing to the terminal. Making the most of the moving sidewalks (standing on them), the group arrived at the terminal a mere seven minutes later – dry, warm and with shoes still intact.”
“Yes, this group of brave souls made the journey and lived to tell the tale,” Medford wrote.
Had they walked on the moving walkways, the trip could’ve taken four minutes, he added, before finishing with a rhetorical flourish:
“The difference between the underground alignment and aerial alignment is only two minutes! Is that worth $330 million?”
Of course, plenty of good minds think it is – including the majority of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board. We challenge them to write an equally entertaining press release explaining why.
