U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will try to make peace Wednesday between the key players shaping the future of the Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport. Debate between the board overseeing the project and the local and state officials helping to pay for it has centered on the cost and location of the airport station.
But the issue has touched off broader concerns about the overall price tag, viability and management of one of the nation’s largest mass transit projects.
The plans for a Metrorail station at Dulles International Airport.
With the stalemate over the airport station threatening to derail the project, LaHood offered to intervene and said last week that he hopes to come out of the meeting in his Southeast offices with “an agreement on a way forward.”
The federal government has pumped nearly $1 billion into the project, and the transportation secretary said it “will go forward; it will be completed. It’s too important to the people of this region.”
It is unclear, however, whether LaHood can mend rifts in what is a fragile coalition of regional partners with competing interests.
Construction is underway on the first phase of the 23-mile rail line, which will have four stations in Tysons Corner and end in Reston. At issue is the second leg to the airport and into Loudoun County.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is managing the rail project, voted in April in favor of building a tunnel and underground station with an eye toward convenience for airline passengers and preservation of the views of the terminal designed by architect Eero Saarinen. The authority, led by a board appointed by the Virginia, Maryland, District and federal governments, also operates Reagan National and Dulles airports and the Dulles toll road.
The board’s decision outraged the elected leaders of Fairfax and Loudoun counties and officials at the state level, who had urged the airports authority to choose a less expensive aboveground station. In the weeks since the vote, local, state and federal officials have pressed the airports authority to reverse course and to scale back the cost of the second phase of the project.
“We are at an impasse,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who called it “untenable” for the airports authority to proceed on its current path. “We’ve got to find a way to make sure it works and that we don’t wittingly or unwittingly jeopardize this project.”
LaHood would not say in an interview whether he has a preference for the airport station location, but he made clear that he, too, is concerned about cost.
“We don’t have a bottomless pit of money,” he said.
The Fairfax and Loudoun governments, which are slated to contribute 16.1 percent and 4.8 percent of the cost, earlier agreed in concept to a plan that included an underground station and had a preliminary cost of $2.5 billion. But with the cost now at $3.5 billion, Loudoun is exploring the possibility of pulling out.
Connolly and Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who represent Northern Virginia, have also expressed frustration with the rising cost. And Wolf introduced legislation last month that would make it easier to remove members of the airports authority board.
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