The
benefits of a tunnel for Metrorail in Tysons
Corner are real. So are the drawbacks. With
federal funding still critical to the Dulles
Corridor Rail Project, responsible public
officials must make pragmatic decisions. Stay on
track for $900 million from the Federal Transit
Administration. Do not delay further. Do not
jeopardize Metrorail through Tysons Corner to
Dulles Airport. Put a shovel in the ground early
in 2008.
Those
are the straightforward conclusions by the Matthew
Tucker, director of the Virginia Department of
Rail and Public Transportation, in reporting the
results early in March of a professional review of
studies submitted to justify a large bore tunnel
in Tysons. The engineering and environmental
discussions were submitted in January by Tysons
Tunnel, Inc., a coalition of the McLean Chamber of
Commerce, community leaders and interested
citizens. With a catchy slogan, “It’s Not Over
Until It’s Under,” advocates have been trying
to put the tunnel option back on the table since
2006.
The
tunnel visionaries have made their case fervently.
They note that communities everywhere are working
to put rail projects underground, rather than on
elevated facilities, for lifecycle cost and
aesthetic reasons. They point to Arlington as a
great local example of how ensuing urban
development can proceed without gross disruptions
to existing businesses and commuters. They argue
that Tysons workers, shoppers and residents will
be able to move around a tunnel more easily than
an aerial alignment.
Their
efforts are only the latest blip on the
extraordinarily long Rail-to-Dulles timeline.
Generations will have been born, graduated and
grown into responsible adults in the time that
will have passed between the first exploration of
the idea and its realization. The median of the
Dulles Airport access road, for example, was
designed to include rail from the time it opened
45 years ago. Basic decisions about the alignment
and form for rail through Tysons Corner were made
years ago, including the adoption of the Locally
Preferred Alternative and Final Environmental
Impact Statement in 2004 and a Federal Transit
Administration amended record of decision in
November 2006. The project goal is final design
approval in June 2007 and what is called a Full
Funding Grant Agreement with FTA before the year
is out.
Therein
lies the rub. New technologies emerge over a
decade. Time itself encourages second thoughts,
even second guessing. Yet any deviation from the
final steps in an approval process that goes back
13 years is risky. The primary conclusion of the
independent review team was that “there is a
significant risk that the project cost of the
Large Bore Tunnel would not meet the FTA’s Cost
Effectiveness ratio criteria, which could
compromise federal funding for the project.”
Director
Tucker went further in a letter of Secretary of
Transportation Pierce Homer on March 7, noting
that while a 3.4-mile tunnel through Tysons Corner
was shown to be technically feasible in the
submission, Tysons Tunnel, Inc. did not validate
its own cost and schedule estimates. Because of
federal and Metrorail requirements, validation
could add another two, even three years to the
process.
Other
review elements cited tradeoffs in costs and
benefits in both directions. Some real estate
takings, construction and utility easements are
the same regardless of whether a tunnel could
replace elevated tracks. Pedestrians in a new
transit-oriented Tysons will be challenged by
either option without new road and street
connections, bus connections and traffic calming
measures that are not part of the rail project.
Just as aerial transit has unique operating costs
related to weather and operations, underground
transit has unique costs related to escalators,
ventilation, drainage, pumping and lighting
requirements. What's more, tons of muck -- the
excavated material -- has to be removed,
processed, hauled and dumped.
The
more than 206 million users of Metrorail in 2006
also could offer the observation that the 106-mile
system across Northern Virginia, suburban Maryland
and the District of Columbia already has more than
half of its track miles above ground, including
nine miles and six stations in aerial alignments.
Although Metro proudly boasts that it has the
longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere -- 508
feet long at the Red Line’s Wheaton, Md. -- it
also concedes that some of its most vexing
problems have been maintenance of its escalators.
Tunnel
advocates clearly do not like the findings of the
state review. The Fairfax County Board of
Supervisors has raised other questions related to
competition in bidding to keep project costs down.
Virginia has just drawn a line in the sand to
require its private-sector partners in the
public-private venture to get final cost estimates
in line and conclude negotiations with the new
public partner, the Metropolitan Washington
Airports Authority, by April 5.
But
the fractious parties have been careful not to
poison the overwhelming public support for the
Dulles Corridor Rail Project, including its four
stations in Tysons Corner, the prevails whether
rail is aligned above, along or under existing
roadways. Just because tunnel advocates didn’t
get the answer they wanted doesn’t mean the
process is fixed or fatally flawed. Just because a
$4 billion plus project generates serious
disagreements and tough decisions doesn’t mean a
community of interests will not drive it forward
to a successful conclusion.
Still,
Tucker reminds that the cost of the project is
escalating at a rate of $4 million a month. As
Yogi Berra might have put it: “It can’t be
over unless we actually start."
--
March 21, 2007
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