When Federal Transit Administration officials were deciding whether to fund Phase 1 of the Dulles Rail Project, they expressed concerns that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority had no experience managing such a large and complex transportation project. Now that MWAA has taken over responsibility for Phase 2 as well, those concerns have been validated. Last week, MWAA announced that it will cost an additional $1.3 billion for the final 11.5-mile extension to Washington Dulles International Airport, raising the total cost of the entire 23.1-mile project to a mind-blowing $6.6 billion. Only $900 million will be covered by the federal government.State and local officials sold this exorbitantly expensive rail project to the tax-paying public primarily as a needed transit link to the airport. They even broke it into two sections to circumvent FTA’s cost-effectiveness standards. Now we know why. Doreen Frasca, MWAA’s financial adviser, recommended that the airports authority hold off on selling bonds for Phase 2 until next spring (even though interest rates are extremely favorable right now) because of the need to disclose the real costs to prospective bond buyers. Frasca was not only waving a red flag, she was firing off an emergency flare.

MWAA is now scrambling to move the location of the underground airport station — supposedly the centerpiece of the entire project — away from the main terminal to save money, even though doing so will discourage passengers from taking Metro to Dulles. This makes no sense. Neither does sharply escalating costs when construction is one of the industries hardest hit by the recession.