It would be poetic justice indeed if the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority’s hasty takeover of Dulles Rail, cynically designed to further shield this $4.5 billion boondoggle from public scrutiny and accountability, turns out to be very thing that kills it by altering the complicated calculus used by the Federal Transit Administration to evaluate new projects.
The FTA is still waiting for final reports on “technical capacity” and “organizational risk” before deciding whether to release $900 million in federal funds. Since MWAA has no experience building or managing a transportation project of such magnitude, the takeover must have increased the risk factors substantially. That could push a project already teetering on the precipice of cost-effectiveness right over the edge.
This would be good news, given that a majority of the political appointees on MWAA’s board aren’t even from Virginia, but have been given tremendous power over Northern Virginia taxpayers — who have no recourse at the ballot box. An FTA denial is their last hope.
Tysons Land Use Task Force Chairman Clark Tyler concedes that a sufficient number of commuters won’t use Dulles Rail unless a “circulator” delivers them to four stations at the base of its monstrous elevated tracks. “Metro by itself won’t do it,” Tyler said. But this “circulator” is nothing more than a bus rapid-transit system, which Dulles Rail opponents have been pushing for years as a better, cheaper alternative to heavy rail.
Fairfax Chamber president and Dulles Rail cheerleader Willam Lecos acknowledges that wealthy landowners who plan to cash in on their proximity to the new Metro stations are balking at paying for the circulator, too. He says “a new funding strategy” (i.e. higher taxes) must be found to pay for a secondary transportation system whose main purpose is to entice Tysons workers to use the first.
But if there’s going to be a BRT system in Tysons anyway, there’s no need for a concrete “El” down the middle of Route 7. BRT could pick up commuters right in front of their office buildings and drop them off at the airport or any of four existing Metro stations located within a five-mile radius, literally saving taxpayers billions of dollars in the process.
Dulles Rail won’t work without a circulator, but a circulator will work just fine without Dulles Rail. FTA’s job is to spend federal funds wisely and minimize risk, and the best way to do both is to give the money to a far more worthy project than this.
