In order to take advantage of low construction costs, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and the General Assembly agreed to incur $4 billion in debt in order to expand and maintain the commonwealth’s extensive highway system, which has become seriously degraded after years of neglect. But McDonnell still hasn’t done anything about the commonwealth’s $30 billion white elephant. That’s the total estimated cost of the Dulles Rail project, of which Phase 1 is currently under construction.
In 2009, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority — which is managing Phase 2 — publicly disclosed for the first time in a bond prospectus that tolls on the Dulles Toll Road would have to reach double digits by 2047 in order to pay off $18 billion in construction bonds plus interest.
And that doesn’t include the unfunded operating costs, anticipated to be $100 million or more annually, which will add another $7 billion to the bottom line. As Rob Whitfield of the Dulles Corridor Users Group testified before the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in July 2009, “Dulles Rail will cost us $30 billion in the next 50 years.”
That’s a $30 billion project that does not even meet the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation’s own 2008 guidelines. On page 12 of “Transit Service Design Guidelines,” DRPT requires a population density of at least 6,667 persons per square mile to support a heavy rail system.
But the average current population between Reston and Ashburn is just 3,500 per square mile — less than half the state’s own minimum density requirement and far short of the optimal 15,000 persons per square mile found in central urban business districts.
Dulles Rail also depends upon massive new commercial and residential development clustered at or on top of the new stations. Perhaps this was a reasonable assumption back in 2002, when the preliminary environmental impact statement was being prepared, but it is a flight of fancy in a post-2008 world where commercial space in the suburbs is already overbuilt and financing for speculative ventures is virtually nonexistent.
Under the current scheme, Dulles Toll Road drivers who won’t be riding the Silver Line will be forced to pay more than half of the cost for a Metrorail extension that a) doesn’t meet the commonwealth’s own density requirements; b) will only attract 10,000 new riders, according to a recent Federal Transit Administration press release; and c) was never approved by their elected representatives in the General Assembly.
Furthermore, if the current condition of the existing 34-year-old Metrorail system is any indication, the whole thing will wear out years before it’s paid for.
Even Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a longtime supporter of the 23-mile Metrorail extension, is having second thoughts, asking the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office to audit MWAA. Meanwhile, Loudoun County Board Chairman Scott York will discuss the increasingly shaky financial status of Phase 2 at the board’s March 15 business meeting.
Assumptions that enough airline passengers will lug heavy suitcases for an hour’s Metro ride from D.C. to make this project worth the enormous cost are theoretical at best. Dulles is already one of the most expensive airports in the nation.
According to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, its average ticket price of $419.48 — including taxes and fees for domestic flights — is already much higher than prices at Reagan National or BWI Thurgood Marshall, both of which have long had mass transit links.
This is nuts. But to paraphrase Shakespeare, who will rid residents of Northern Virginia of this meddlesome pachyderm?
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
