Opposition Building Over Toll Road Deal

Airports Authority Chairman Mary A. "Mame" Reiley said she is puzzled by Howell's comments.

"We're cutting out the middleman," Reiley said, noting that companies would build a margin of profit into their operation of the toll road. "The millions they would be making will [now] be going directly for rail to Dulles."

In an interview Wednesday, James E. Bennett, president and chief executive of the airports authority, said the agency is trying to work out the details of how it would assume control and what the next steps of the project would be.

"We're not that deep into it yet," he said.

Last year, five groups submitted bids to take over management of the toll road in return for its revenue over the next 50 years. Four of those cleared the state's first round of scrutiny, but they were put on hold when the airports authority jumped in with its bid in December.

State officials said they would consider the authority's offer first because the authority controls the land that the road sits on and has the power to reject any other deals.

The private-sector offers carried the promise of cash payments of several hundred million dollars, immediate fixes to the highway and, in at least one case, building high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes.

But unlike the authority offer, none of the private-sector proposals guaranteed enough money to build the entire rail line from Falls Church to Loudoun County.

Staff writer Alec MacGillis contributed to this report.