As Dulles Rail Staggers, Players Share in Blame

"We had an obligation to look thoroughly at the tunnel option," said Connolly, who ultimately supported the aerial alignment to save the project. The tunnel is "clearly the preferable way to go if it's feasible. But at the end of the day, it was determined not to be feasible."

Other tunnel supporters deny harming the process.

"We've done nothing to delay this project. We've done nothing to undercut this thing. Zero," Davis said. He has tried to revive the tunnel in discussions with the FTA and, more recently, told the tunnel lobby to be prepared with their proposal if the current project "goes south." Davis cited the state's tardiness in completing its application as a more harmful factor to Dulles rail.

"The only one who has delayed this project is the governor," he said.

It is true that the tunnel was not the only cause of project delays. Long before that debate, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation was missing deadlines for submissions to the FTA. The agency had never managed such a large project -- one reason the state has since agreed to transfer management to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The authority not only has construction management experience, but it also agreed to pay for a large portion of the project through collections on the Dulles Toll Road, which it would manage as well.

Homer said most of the delays under Virginia's watch resulted from allowing interest groups to have a say.

"Open deliberation has consequences for timelines, and that was certainly the case here," he said. "Democracy is messy. Accommodating citizen inquiries and legitimate interests takes time. If we're going to ask private landowners to pay 25 percent of the cost of this, they're going to rightfully ask for a voice."

The transfer to the airports authority also took time. So did demands by Fairfax to change the project's alignment along Route 7 and Metro's requests that the stations be built with certain materials for ease of maintenance.

So, too, did the hoops that the FTA imposed on the process, including an independent review by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general. Many involved say the FTA is assigned too little blame for its role in the project's struggles.

"There seemed to be new hurdles, new objections, every step of the way," said Chris Zimmerman (D), a member of the Arlington County Board and the Metro board.

Others place the blame for cost escalation squarely at the feet of the project's no-bid contract. Under the terms of the state's Public-Private Transportation Act, Virginia negotiated the contract with a consortium called Dulles Transit Partners, which was chosen years ago in a competitive process to perform preliminary project design.

Even if the project squeaks past the cost-efficiency standards required to get the federal money, it might do so at a cost of valuable station amenities, such as extra escalators and elevators or pedestrian facilities. Homer has said he expects to focus on trims that will not hurt ridership or that can be financed through other means, such as a rail car yard, a parking deck in Reston and road improvements in Tysons.

But the trims must be approved by all the entities that have made the process so complicated in the first place, including Fairfax and Loudoun supervisors, Metro and the airports authority.

"You reach a point where the cost outweighs the benefit," said Fairfax Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully). "And if we don't get on with it, we'll get to that point pretty quickly."

Staff writer Bill Turque contributed to this report.