It appears that the Rail-to-Dulles issue isn’t going away. In today’s column, “They Played Us,” Doug Koelemay writes colorfully that the recent Federal Transit Administration to refject federal funding for the heavy rail project is “the largest federal assault on Virginia rail since Union Gen. Benjamin Butler ripped into the Richmond & Petersburg line in 1864.”
Doug advances the argument that there is something grievously flawed with the process by which the FTA reached its decision. He concludes that the FTA should:
Stop moving the goal posts, start looking ahead at opportunities in rapidly urbanizing areas and start delivering what Virginians, like all Americans, expect — a process that reduces the time and cost of delivering transit projects, that helps allocate risks and responsibilities, that contributes predictability and transparency to the process and that accommodates innovative project delivery methods, such as the partnerships and financing mechanisms proposed by Virginia for Dulles Rail.
No doubt Doug is right, the FTA process could be improved. But there’s no overlooking the flaws inherent with the project that was submitted to the FTA either.
E M Risse offers a very different take on the FTA decision. He agrees in “Who Killed Dulles Rail?” the FTA is hardly innocent. Who would expect a Republican administration to give such a plum to a state with a Democratic governor? But plenty of others deserve a share of the blame, including, in ascending order: state officials, Washington Dulles airport, civic cheerleaders, landowners and developers, consultants and “investors,” municipal “leaders,” tunnelphiles and, most egregiously, the Washington Post. To paraphrase Pogo, “We have seen the enemy, and it is us.”
While we’re on the topic, it’s worth noting that Amy Gardner writes in the WaPo today that the Carlyle Infrastructure Fund and other private equity groups have expressed an interest in investing in a Rail to Dulles project. I’m not holding my breath — like the existing proposal, Carlyle would extract wealth from Dulles Toll Road commuters rather than the property owners who would be enriched by the project — but it’s always possible that an outside equity group would bring fresh thinking to the project.
Meanwhile the Washington Examiner has posted a story on how Rail-to-Dulles supporters are taking heat for having vested themselves in a project that turned out a loser. Most interesting are the comments of former Congresswoman Leslie Byrne who may face Gerry Connolly, chair of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, in a bid for her old 11th District seat. “Neither the Board of Supervisors nor the governor’s office have cloaked themselves in glory on this,” Byrne said. “They went forward with an idea that wasn’t well accepted, and that’s the price you pay for it.”
Byrne faulted the Kaine administration for excessive secrecy and failing to adequately bid the project. And she criticized Fairfax supervisors for using Dulles Rail as a justification for approving too much new development. Said Byrne:
When you focus so much on ‘we’re going to expand zoning because we’re going to have a wonderful rail project,’ it became about the expansion of zoning and not really about how to move people most efficiently.