Price Soars For Extension Of Metrorail

If the price rises significantly, the project's state and local advocates will be forced to go back to those sources and ask for more money, or find other sources.

"The state is going to have to go back and make those numbers work," said Dan Scandling, a spokesman for Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who has been instrumental in pushing for federal financial support for the project. "This is the state's project. They hired the engineers and put the financing plan together. They have to explain how these numbers are going to work -- or are not going to work."

The escalating price also affects a critical cost-effectiveness measure that the Federal Transit Administration uses in weighing whether to help pay for it.

In March, the FTA announced that it would target its funding recommendations at projects that garner rating of "medium" or better for cost effectiveness.

Even when the cost estimate for the Tysons rail project was $1.5 billion, the FTA ranked its cost effectiveness as medium-low. The $2.4 billion figure would drop that assessment down another notch.

Acknowledging that a significantly higher price would fail federal standards, Carnaggio said: "I think we can get to a lower figure. But it's going to take a lot of work over the next two months."

One of the key players in the coming months will be Metro, which will be asked to allow the new rail line -- an extension of the Metrorail system -- to deviate from its standards in order to save construction money.

Richard A. White, Metro's chief executive, said yesterday that his staff would review the cost-cutting proposals.

"We're obviously going to evaluate every idea on that list," he said. "There are a lot of value judgments that need to be made."

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) similarly said he was open to changes, even the idea of eliminating the tunnel through Tysons Corner. Engineers advocated construction of the tunnel, saying that placing the tracks above ground over a hill in the area would mean elevating them 50 feet or more in places -- a potentially unattractive structure in what boosters hope will become Northern Virginia's "downtown."

"We can live with that," Connolly said of eliminating the tunnel. "Getting this project done is essential to our future."