For McLean Chamber Group, Tysons Tunnel Dream Endures

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 19, 2006

Two months after Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declared it dead, a proposal to build a Metrorail line below Tysons Corner instead of an elevated track is still being championed by businesses and residents who, despite long odds, are putting several million dollars into keeping the idea alive.

Underlying the movement is widespread discontent and bafflement over why a proposal to build the line underground was killed despite its being favored by many Fairfax County residents whose families would use and live beside the line for generations to come.

Particularly upsetting is that federal officials warned Kaine (D) against a tunnel, even though the state was willing to cover the additional cost, some Northern Virginians say.

"The evidence was compelling that this should be a tunnel, and I was as shocked as anyone at the decision," said Brenda Bohlke, a Herndon engineer who sat on a state panel that endorsed a tunnel. "It's common sense."

Leading the attempt to resuscitate the tunnel proposal is a group created by the Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce, dubbed TysonsTunnel.org. With the slogan "It's not over til it's under," the group is trying to raise $3 million from businesses, including Tysons' biggest landowner, WestGroup, to pay for engineering designs that could prove a tunnel would be doable.

More than 200 residents packed an auditorium in McLean on Wednesday to hear experts assembled by the group argue that building an elevated track for the four-mile Tysons portion of the 23-mile Metro extension from West Falls Church to Dulles International Airport would worsen traffic congestion during construction. A track also would deal a blow to Fairfax's efforts to turn the area into a lively, walkable downtown similar to Arlington County's Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, they said.

Reviving the tunnel now is a long shot, as state and federal officials move to stay on schedule for extending the rail to Tysons in 2012 and Dulles in 2015. "Our focus is on making the aerial alignment work in a way that helps commuters and helps area businesses flourish," said Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce R. Homer.

Even if the last-minute bid for the tunnel fails, though, the vigor of the opposition to an elevated track suggests that the state's year-long dalliance with the underground option has caused a shift in how the project is viewed by the public. For years, many in Fairfax had seen the planned extension of rail to Dulles as a boon for the region, regardless of its design.

But after the state built up hopes for an underground line only to dash them, it now appears possible that the line, with its 35-foot-high track slicing through Tysons, could become one of the region's most unloved transportation structures. The tunnel, meanwhile, has become an unlikely cause celebre, hovering like a ghost over the project.

"Once they get going on [the elevated track], the populace is going to be very angry," said Paula Roberts, a McLean resident.

As recently as last year, there had been a consensus in favor of building the line aboveground through Tysons along Route 123 and Route 7, with four stations along the way. Metro, state and Fairfax officials had considered tunneling in the late 1990s but decided it would be too expensive.

Late last year, though, Metro officials suggested a new method, using a large-bore machine to dig a single huge tunnel that could hold tracks for both directions. The technology, which has been used in Europe and Asia, had the potential to make a tunnel affordable.

The project's contractors, a consortium led by construction giant Bechtel, said a large-bore tunnel would still be too expensive. Tunnel supporters challenged this, noting that Bechtel stood to lose the Tysons portion of the job to another company if the state went with a tunnel. Kaine commissioned a study by engineers who reported back that a tunnel was preferable and would cost only about $200 million more.

Tunnel skeptics questioned this estimate, which they deemed overly optimistic. Among them were Reps. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the project's top congressional sponsors, who wrote to Kaine reminding him that the project must meet federal "cost-effectiveness" standards. These rules, meant to prevent costly boondoggles, rate projects according to their benefits and their total cost, not just the expected federal share. Even if the state covered the cost of a tunnel, the project might be deemed too costly and lose the $900 million federal contribution (the rest of the project is covered by a tax on landowners along the line and revenue from the Dulles Toll Road.) The delay caused by changing designs could also imperil funding, the congressmen wrote.

Kaine was inclined to endorse a tunnel anyway. But immediately after a meeting with Wolf, Davis and Federal Transit Administration officials in early September, Kaine announced that the tunnel was dead.

Local officials and residents are still apportioning responsibility. Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) faulted Wolf and Davis for their warning letter to Kaine. By publicly stating their concerns about a tunnel, Connolly said, the congressmen undermined Kaine's ability to gain more flexibility from the FTA.

The letter "made crystal clear to the FTA that there would be no pressure from Congress" on behalf of a tunnel, Connolly said. "They could've written a different letter, and they didn't. They could've said, 'We're going to stand by you if you want a tunnel. We're going to fight for it.' "

Wolf denies any role in the tunnel's demise, saying the decision was Kaine's. "Governor Kaine could have gone any way he wanted," he said. "Nobody forced the governor to make that decision."

An FTA spokesman concurred, saying that the decision had been the governor's.

Metro board member Gordon Linton, a former FTA chief, said the tunnel's demise shows that the cost-effectiveness rules need to be revised. It was "wrongheaded," he said, to discourage local governments against spending their money on upgrades that would increase a project's chances for success.

Others, including Davis, point to the state, Fairfax and Metro officials, who ruled out a tunnel until the last-minute consideration of the large-bore option. If the option had been explored earlier, there would have been more time to weigh it without risk of delay.

The initial preference for an aboveground line "was driven by the local government," Davis said. "For them to sit back now and blame the federal government, I'm incredulous."

A Metro spokeswoman said the large-bore option wasn't considered until last year because it hadn't been used in North America. But Walter Mergelsberg, a former Metro engineer, said that wasn't reason enough to rule out the technology, noting plenty of examples of its success in similar projects. "Someone should have raised it," he said. "It was a no-brainer that it was adaptable to Tysons."

Mergelsberg's firm, the Herndon-based Dr. Sauer Group, is part of a team now producing tunnel designs. The tunnel group says it is close to raising enough to cover the engineers' discounted $3 million price. Last week, it received a $1,000 check from Fairfax Supervisor and Metro board member T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee). But it is relying mostly on companies such as WestGroup, which says an elevated track would harm its plans to transform its end of Tysons with apartments and shops.

The hope, tunnel supporters say, is that when the Bechtel consortium issues its final price in coming months, it will be higher than the state expected, closer to the estimated tunnel cost. Presented with the tunnel designs, the state could then break off its contract with the consortium, an unusual public-private partnership, and rebid the project.

There is also a hope among tunnel supporters that with the Democrats taking over Congress, officials such as Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.) or Sen.-elect James Webb (D-Va.) could urge a new look at the tunnel. State officials say that is unlikely.

Scott Monett, the McLean Chamber president leading the tunnel group, acknowledged the long odds but said the support the group is getting justified its bid.

"People are just coming out of the woodwork," he said. "They're raising hell. They're upset that no one is standing up for the tunnel, because it's the right thing to do."