Examiner.com makes an interesting point:
Officials at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority late last month unveiled an agreement to build the first 11.6-mile phase of the rail at a total cost of $2.4 billion to $2.7 billion — considerably more than the early estimates of $1.8 billion. Fairfax County and the federal government have pledged a total of $1.3 billion. Tolls will cover the rest of the growing cost.
That’s just Phase One, extending the rail to Tysons Corner. What happens with Phase Two, which runs the rail all the way out to Dulles, Examiner.com asks. How big will the Phase Two overruns be? What sources of money, other than the toll road, will exist to pay for that leg of the project? Will Dulles Toll Road commuters be asked to take up the slack with tolls even higher than what’s currently projected?
Instead of sticking it to commuters with ever-escalating flat tolls, I think we should convert the Dulles Toll Road to a congestion-toll arrangement. Take the surplus funds and reinvest in making improvements to the corridor, whether expanding lanes, improving interchanges, setting up Rapid Bus Transit, synchronizing stoplights along parallel roads… or underwriting the Rail-to-Dulles project to a limited degree.
I want to see Rail-to-Dulles built. But not at any cost. And certainly not overwhelmingly on the backs of people who benefit only indirectly from the project. There has to be a better way. Again, I return to the landowners, who will reap multi-million windfalls from the presence of Metro stations and increases in zoning density. Why are the politicians so unwilling to consider tapping some of that value to help finance the project?
