The latest estimate for the cost of phase one of the Rail to Dulles project — extending the Metro system to Tysons Corner — recently jumped up to $2.4 billion to $2.7 billion, up from the previous estimate of $2.1 billion. How much, then, will it cost to build phase two, which takes the heavy rail line all the way to Dulles airport?
Last year, the estimate was $2 billion. Todays, says Marcia McAllister, spokesperson for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, there is no official estimate for the cost of the second leg of the project. So reports Ari Cetron with the Connection Newspapers today.
Let’s think this through. If the cost of phase one has jumped by 14 to 28 percent, there’s a pretty good chance that phase two will increase at least as much. All told, totaling phases one and two, a project expected to cost around $4 billion a year ago now is expected to cost $5 billion. And that’s before we get the negotiated contract prices, the inevitable change orders, and the equally inevitable cost overruns. Can you say, “Out of control?”
There isn’t much incentive to keep things under control because the major pressure groups have everything to gain from the Rail to Dulles and little to lose, while those who will pay for the bulk of the project, and very likely any overruns — the riders on the Dulles Toll Road — are politically powerless. The only way to keep Rail to Dulles from becoming a grotesque transfer of wealth from middle-class commuters to well-connected contractors, landowners and special interests is to create a financing scheme that taps the economic value created for property owners around the Metro stations. The modest amount of revenue anticipated from a special taxing district in Fairfax County doesn’t come close.