U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has joined the brouhaha over Dulles Metrorail funding, offering to meet with local officials contesting a $3.8 billion price tag. LaHood is the most recent in a line of influential voices to seek a solution to ballooning cost estimates for the rail line to Dulles International Airport and beyond, according to sources familiar with the matter. The project’s price tag has soared from the original estimate of $2.5 billion.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell called for cost controls last week, including building the Dulles Metro station above ground instead of underground. The underground option decided upon by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority would cost about $330 million more than an above ground station — much of that cost falling to Fairfax and Loudoun County taxpayers. Congressman Frank Wolf also voiced opposition to spiraling costs.
A U.S. Department of Transportation spokesman speaking on background said the meeting will aim to “resolve differences among stakeholders over the project.”
But a local official with knowledge of the situation said that Secretary LaHood is sympathetic to those opting for the less costly above-ground station.
Airports authority Chairman Charles Snelling called the meeting “a very good idea,” but said that no date has been set.
Snelling and the majority of his board have remained adamently supportive of the underground station, pointing to its nearer proximity to the Dulles terminal, and its placement out of the sightline of the airport’s prized Eero Saarinen archtecture. Overall costs remain an issue, however.
“We continue to look for savings everywhere, and I’m sure there will be savings,” he said.
Airports authority board member and former Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia, Tom Davis, said that one of the current stumbling blocks is cost estimates all over the map, none of which are agreed upon. Davis was one of four board members to vote against the underground station.
“Clearly, these costs have to come down,” he said. “No one wants these costs to be excessive.”
