Next Stop, the Woodshed: Metro Silver Line Feud Enters Double Secret Probation

The ongoing brouhaha about the second phase of the Dulles Metro extension -- you know, the one that will actually extend Metro to Dulles -- entered a fun new stage yesterday, as Principal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood got all the involved parties in a room and brought out the paddle urged them to come up with a solution that will cut costs in the next 30 days or face Double Secret Probation a potential loss of federal funding for the project:

A lot is at stake for all of the funding partners if the second phase stalls or does not get built. Among those risks for MWAA is losing a rail station to the airport.

Loudoun County risks more than $200 million in net revenue through economic development near the new stations. Fairfax County risks overwhelming its Reston station because Loudouners would drive to Wiehle Avenue to ride the train. With the risks in mind, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova said Fairfax is still committed to finishing the second phase of the project.

“We already have a lot of skin in the game,” she said. “We worked very hard to get phase one under construction.”

Which is why we think we'll ultimately see an underground station at Dulles. As others, including a seasoned medical practitioner, have pointed out, the airport authority ultimately calls the shots:

There is no threat to the construction of a rail line out to Dulles International Airport. It’s going to get built. The key decisions to do this were made years ago. Today’s politicians are haggling over the details.

The decisions that got us to this point included choosing a a heavy rail line over bus rapid transit, choosing a route through Tysons Corner rather than taking a straight shot at the airport and choosing to put the airports authority in charge of the construction.

If politicians didn’t want the airports authority to be the decision-maker on the location of the airport station, they shouldn’t have put the airports authority in charge of building the railroad.

And since we’re on a course to invest more than $5 billion in taxpayer and toll-payer money in this railroad, we also should care about putting the station close to the potential riders.

The Dulles Metrorail project is a hybrid. It’s partly about making sense out of that space station we call Tysons Corner. It can’t be the 21st Century economic hub that people envision if everyone has to drive in and out of the place.

But Dulles Metrorail is also about Dulles. To succeed, the airport transit system has to be competitive with other ways of getting to and from the airport. It has to be easy to reach when you pluck your bags off the luggage carousel and look for the exit.

Individual politicians may see some political interest in sticking it to the airports authority over the station’s location. But the D.C. region’s interest is in finding a way to put the station within a few football fields of the terminal while keeping the cost as low as possible.

But the politicians who have been bashing the airports authority will have to stop pandering and join in some serious discussions about revenues and costs. The problem isn’t the location of the station. The problem is the cost of the project.

Instead of shaking down the Toll Road users, could there be another revenue source? Could there be a surcharge on using the airport station? Metro already crossed that threshold last year by creating a financing plan for station improvements that allows for a surcharge on riders entering or exiting a particular station.

In the same vein, the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance continues to point out what it calls the elephant in the room: the fact that Dulles Toll Road users are now going to be tapped for more than half the funding for the total cost of the $6.25 billion project. (If the airport authority relents and builds its station above ground, it will be a reasonable $5.95 billion, or maybe 50 cents less per trip, but that basic fact remains unchanged.) When the project was first announced, it was assumed the feds would pick up half the total cost, but it ain't exactly high-rolling times in D.C. anymore.

Despite all this, airport authority officials are starting to sound more conciliatory.

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Chairman Charles Snelling, chief of the board that decided in favor of the underground station, told The Washington Examiner that the decision is not final. His tone represents a shift away from more adamant past statements in favor of the underground station.

"There are problems that need to be addressed," Snelling said. "We don't want high tolls any more than anyone else."

Fortunately we are Here to Help. Maybe he and other MWAA officials can throw some extra quarters (and it'll have to be a whole bunch of quarters) into the basket for the next driver every time they go through a toll plaza, Oprah/Pay It Forward style, and everything will be just fine. Problem solved -- and with 29 days to pick out the color swatches on those rad subway seats, the end.