Tunnel Is Affordable, Advocate Group Says

The plans -- 40 pounds of documents produced in a matter of weeks and delivered by the dozens yesterday to Capitol Hill and Richmond inside large cardboard barrels -- said that building under Tysons would cost no more than an elevated track and perhaps even slightly less.

"It's up to the governor . . . to decide what to do with these documents," said Mark C. Lowham, an executive with WestGroup, the major Tysons landowner that helped bankroll the plans. "They address most of the questions he raised and are a solid basis on which estimates can be made."

Still, tunnel supporters acknowledge that their push faces long odds and a tight deadline. The state is negotiating a final price for the project with the contractors, a consortium led by construction giant Bechtel. The schedule calls for having federal funding secured a year from now, with construction starting soon afterward. The line is to reach Wiehle Avenue in Reston by 2012 and Dulles and Loudoun County by 2015.

Tysons supporters said yesterday that switching to a tunnel would require only a three-month delay to complete the needed environmental reviews. The estimate provided yesterday was $2.4 billion to build the line with a tunnel under Tysons.

"We've been conservative in this estimate," said Brenda Bohlke, an engineer who served in the summer on a Kaine-appointed panel that endorsed a tunnel.

The $2.4 billion estimate is roughly equal to the last known estimate for that portion of the line with an elevated track, about $2.38 billion. But many features have been added to the project at Fairfax's request since that number was produced, and those with knowledge of the project say it's now several hundred million dollars higher, pending negotiations. Tunnel supporters said yesterday that Metro officials told them a tunnel would cost $5 million less per year to maintain. They also said it would take less time to construct.

"Nobody can give me a good reason why we can't do a tunnel through Tysons," said Walter Mergelsberg, a former Metro engineer now with the Dr. Sauer Group, which helped produce the plans.

Shear reported from Richmond.