Virginia officials, who entered the meeting confident that they were nearing the end of an approval process that began in earnest more than 15 years ago, instead were shocked to be read the riot act as the FTA doubled back on its positive decisions of recent years -- approving the preliminary engineering (2004), recommending Dulles Rail to Congress (2005), approving the final alignment (2006), finding MWAA capable of project supervision and construction management and agreeing with budget reductions to keep the project within cost-benefit guidelines (2007). One participant later disgustedly told colleagues, “They’ve negotiated in bad faith, they played us.”

Perhaps Virginia officials shouldn’t have been shocked. A standing joke in Washington is that the key to success is sincerity -- and if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. So the federal trash talking about regional transportation bodies and local and state financing, not just Dulles Rail alignment and construction details, reveals that FTA may be its own biggest problem.

FTA appears to be unable to see a world other than one that meets its backward-looking evaluation criteria originally drawn up for mature urban areas. It has had trouble adjusting from an 80 percent grant maker to transit projects it controlled to a new role as a minority investor. Consulting firm Deloitte provided all the descriptive phrases a critic could want in a 2007 final report to the FTA on what’s wrong with the New Starts Program.

Deloitte reported that that FTA faces key issues of “transparency and consistency.” The FTA New Starts project development process was described as “lengthy and burdensome.” Enforcement of policies across the program, Deloitte reported, is “inconsistent.” Roles, responsibilities, authority and accountability at FTA “are not clearly defined” and use of technology is “ineffective” and “inadequate.”

The Deloitte report, which is available on the FTA web site, illustrated its findings with quotes from key stake holders.

“We are guilty of moving the goal posts, but not just in overall policy changes; it’s day-to-day decisions on individual projects.”

“The project rating process seems to be done in total secrecy.”

“We do not manage risk. We try to eliminate it. We are completely risk adverse.”

Deloitte recommended greater consistency and clarity in FTA guidance, increased focus on improved communications and greater use of technology enablers. Advances in each of these areas almost certainly would have avoided the FTA misinformation, meltdown and abrupt U-turn on Dulles Rail decisions this month. Regrettably, FTA has avoided for a year any substantive responses on the key issues of reducing delays due to federal reviews, improving communications and accommodating unique project needs, all critical requirements for the Dulles Rail project.

And it would help if the FTA had its facts straight. The FTA argued that MWAA could not be trusted to oversee such large and complex projects, for example, apparently oblivious that Dulles Airport served over 25 million passengers in 2007 and that MWAA will invest nearly $7 billion over 15 years in Dulles infrastructure and facilities to prepare for 35 million passenger in 2016. That includes concourse expansions, new runways, new parking garages, new highway interchanges and five miles of an underground Aerotrain subway system to replace the mobile lounge units now in place. Since 1964 the Federal Aviation Administration's master plan for Dulles International Airport has recommended a transit line along the airport access road.

Northern Virginia commuters have been paying tolls since 2005 to get congestion relief and an alternative in Dulles Rail and Tysons landowners, who banded together in a special taxing district, have been paying higher commercial property taxes since 2004 to support the project. These local and regional revenue sources fund 80 percent of the project costs.

it also might help if the FTA stepped back to consider the Deloitte recommendations on its own New Starts program before finalizing a decision against Dulles Rail that will hamstring the future mobility of the Greater Washington region and two of its critical economic and business centers, Dulles International Airport and Tysons Corner.

That means stop moving the goal posts, start looking ahead at opportunities in rapidly urbanizing areas and start delivering what Virginians, like all Americans, expect -- a process that reduces the time and cost of delivering transit projects, that helps allocate risks and responsibilities, that contributes predictability and transparency to the process and that accommodates innovative project delivery methods, such as the partnerships and financing mechanisms proposed by Virginia for Dulles Rail. Vision and competence qualify as sincere responses.