Metro Silver Line: Thanks to Very Special Tax District, There May Be A Reston Parkway Station After All

A big victory over the weekend for fans of track fires and the occasional derailing: A group trying to create a fancy "special tax district" to pay for the second phase of the Metro Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport and the particleboard wonderlands beyond got enough signatures to make it happen. Thank Reston Hospital, which was one of the self-taxing companies that helped push the signature count over the top. So, yay, there will be a Reston Parkway station after all, and hopefully it'll have the same rad '80s art planned for the Wiehle Avenue stop.

The Western Alliance for Rail to Dulles, a nonprofit group made up of Fairfax landowners, has recruited a majority of affected landowners to create the tax district, which would pay for $330 million in capital funding for the project. Fairfax would pitch in $90 million. Thirty-five landowners, about 57 percent of those affected, signed the group's petition.

"This is a time-consuming process to get these signatures," said Jeffrey J. Fairfield, vice president of the alliance and a lawyer representing Launders Charitable Trust, which owns 15 acres in the area. "I think in the final analysis, many of these landowners came to the conclusion that while times are hard now, it would have been unthinkable without rail."

The petition needs to be approved by the Herndon Town Council and the Fairfax Board of Supervisors. Bulova, who has made rail to Dulles a priority, said she expects the tax district to be in place by the end of the year, which would allow cash reserves to be built up to pay down bonds once they are issued. Tax rates would start at 5 cents per $100 of assessed value next year and increase to 20 cents in 2013.

U.S. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), former chairman of the Fairfax board, said the announcement was critical in ensuring that Metro extends service through Fairfax and into Loudoun County.

Connolly said that although the economic climate might have delayed creation of the tax district, an announcement last month by Science Applications International Corp. that it would move its headquarters to Tysons Corner is a sign of the region's financial health.

"The case had to be made to the business community that this was a decision that was out of self-interest for the future," he said. "You do not want to be stranded without rail service, like Georgetown."

Suck on that, Georgetown! Now that Reston Town Center will soon have a Metro stop, a Barnes & Noble and a Macaroni Grill, soon the only people who will be visiting your neck of the woods will be futon shoppers and the fake ID crowd. Come to think of it, though, that's really no different than now, is it?