Reston 2020 Enters Dulles Metro Fray With Fancy Letter, Wonders Aloud What Happens if Silver Line Winds Up Ending in Reston

The Reston Citizens Association's Reston 2020 Committee has stepped once more into the fray of the Dulles Metro Phase 2 debacle, writing a fancy letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who is currently mediating the ongoing dispute about the Dulles station. In that letter, the committee calls the current funding formula a "recipe for disaster," and asks a range of questions about increasing costs and why the lion's share of funding will now be paid by Toll Road suckers users.

While most people have been fixated on the Dulles Airport Station, its cost and style are practically irrelevant when compared with the more fundamental flaws in MWAA’s plan for Dulles Metrorail Phase Two (DMP2). Unless it can identify alternative funding options, the project is extremely unlikely to fly. Now, Secretary of Transportation LaHood has offered to help resolve the problems; let’s hope he can help.

R2020 also sent LaHood their recent report on the project's funding formula, which we're sure LaHood will read while sitting in an overheated single-tracking Metro car somewhere under downtown DC, listening to a static-filled announcement about a track fire at Metro Center being driven somewhere in a government vehicle.

Meanwhile, the suckers stakeholders met again on Friday, though no one's talking about what they discussed, which may or may not be against open meetings laws -- but don't worry, because any fancy "freedom of information" lawsuit can be paid for with a few additional quarters at the toll booth.

Also, Virginia's "top cop," or whatever they call attorney generals these days, would be perfectly happy if the whole project just went away.

in a two-hour guest spot on WMAL Radio on Friday, Ken Cuccinelli said “I hope they don’t do Phase Two,” meaning the Metro rail phase from Reston to Dulles to Ashburn.

Cuccinelli called the project an “economic boondoggle” and that “the cost-benefit just is not there.” He said the issue would be a central feature of the Loudoun board of supervisor elections this year, and that ”I hope [voters] elect an entire board who’s committed to pulling out of Phase Two to kill it.”

Cuccinelli also said he was monitoring attempts by the airports authority to require union labor, and was ready to file suit if a “project labor agreement” were put in place, contrary to Virginia’s right-to-work laws.

Isn't there a half-nekkid lady on the state seal or anything else he can spend his time worrying about?

As others have pointed out, ending the Silver Line at Wiehle Avenue is just fine, so long as you don't mind an endless parade of Loudoun County commuters clogging Wiehle Avenue, fighting for the last of the parking spaces in the fancy garage being built there. In fact, the R2020 committee asks LaHood to consider the implications of Cuccinelli's offhand comment:

If DMP2 is delayed significantly, or cancelled, what happens to Reston? Will it be the Silver Line parking lot forever? What remedial steps, if any, is MWAA prepared to take to prevent traffic paralysis in the Reston area?

We're not holding our breath. And along with Loudoun commuters taking away our precious Wiehle garage spaces, they'll be in an extra bad mood since their own fancy fake downtown likely won't be built without a Metro connection, resulting in long lines and surly customers at Jacksons and whatnot and that simply Can Not Stand, the end.