Insiders: Anti-Transit Bias May Hurt Dulles Rail
posted 10:40 pm Wed January 30, 2008 - Washington
Federal Transit Administrator James S. Simpson last week informed officials from Virginia that the project to extend the rail system to Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, was unlikely to qualify for $900 million in federal funding. The entire $5 billion package would collapse without the federal money. "I think the industry had collective disappointment in this decision," said William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association.
Simpson cited several reasons the funding is unlikely, the project's high cost chief among them. He also noted the need for extensive repairs to Metro's existing infrastructure - repairs the agency doesn't know how it will pay for.Virginia officials said the pessimistic prognosis took them by surprise because they previously were told the project was on track for approval.
The fate of the extension was a hot topic of conversation at a weekend conference of the APTA, said Millar and Metro General Manager John Catoe.
Millar said that over the last few years, the Bush administration has been eliminating projects from the funding pipeline. But people in the industry were surprised to see it happen to a major project in the Washington area, he said.
"There was a huge concern that the Dulles issue is not unique to this region, that this is an effort on the part of the administration to re-channel funding to other directions," Catoe said at a news conference timed around his first anniversary on the job.
Simpson denied the charge.
"What this administration is all about is being practical in making investments and not using delusion and illusion to push a mega-project through," he said in a telephone interview.
A list of grants under the Federal Transit Administration's New Starts program, which provides support for local projects, shows that since President Bush took office, the FTA contributed $8.9 billion to 22 projects covering a total of 283 miles.
That compares to $6.2 billion spent on 150 miles of transit during the first seven years of Bill Clinton's presidency, according to the list, which was provided by Simpson's office. The number of projects was also 22.
Additional grants worth $3 billion were made during Clinton's final year in office.
But Millar said that comparison means little, because projects take years to reach the final funding stage. Many of the projects funded by Bush began the process under Clinton, and there was less in the pipeline when Clinton took office following 12 years of Republican administrations, he said.
Catoe drew a connection between the news about the Dulles project and opinions expressed earlier this month by Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.
Peters was part of a special commission that spent two years studying the nation's surface transportation needs. She and two other members dissented from recommendations adopted by the other nine commissioners that called for higher gasoline taxes to help fix aging roads and bridges and expand public transit, highways and rail.
Peters called instead for sole reliance on tolls and private investment, saying that would avoid sending millions of dollars of new tax revenue to Washington that could end up as congressional pork.
Vukan R. Vuchic, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, said that taken together, Peters' dissent and the FTA's statements on the Dulles project were "two disasters."
Meanwhile, Metro continues to push Congress to authorize long-term funding for its existing capital needs. Bills in the House and the Senate would set funding targets of $150 million a year for 10 years. Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia have pledged to provide matching funds.
Regional officials have long argued that Metro is entitled to federal funding because it is essential to the nation's capital and so many of the commuters who take it every day work for the federal government.
But Simpson harshly criticized the region's leaders for waiting for "the federal dole."
"The jurisdictions can't wait for a wing and a prayer for Congress to pass something. Maryland, Virginia and D.C. need to step up to the plate and take care of the state of good repair," he said.
Adding to a system without being able to take care of what it already has is irresponsible, Simpson added.
"It's like the subprime mentality - people don't care what things really cost," he said.
With federal funding for the Dulles rail project now in doubt, Catoe held out hope that after Bush's second term ends next year, the next administration might be more willing to come through.
"I'm optimistic that all of the leading candidates for the presidency hopefully will have a far broader view of the need for public transportation than the current administration," Catoe said.
Latest Comment on Insiders: Anti-Transit Bias May Hurt Dulles Rail
Wm. Gavin
10:34 am on 01/31/08
Sounds like a posterboard for land speculators, developers, lobbyists and greasey politicans and their media croonies. If you want to work in D.C., move to D.C. This white elephant is not needed and is not wanted in Virginia. It will do absolutely nothing to ease any traffic congestion which is created by the same slimey politicians and developers that now say " something has to be done about it." And since the politicians arte using Dulles Airport as their main excuse to justify another project against the will of the taxpayers, how about moving that airport into D.C.? Think of all the jobs that would create and all the traffic congestion it would alleviate. And while we're at it, let's complete I-95 through D.C. to take the strain of f of that monstrosity of a new Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
Bottom line is we don't want this stupid train line and we don't need it either; and we live here.
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