A reckless plan to put a Metro station underground at Dulles, Editorial, Washington Post, April 21, 2011

By Editorial, Wednesday, April 20, 7:40 PM

WOULD YOU PAY $330 million to shave 2 minutes and 40 seconds off your trip to the airport? Or would you pocket that money and put it to better use?

The authority that runs Washington’s two major airports thinks $330 million is a fair price to pay for an underground Metro station at Dulles International Airport — rather than an aboveground one 500 feet farther from the terminal — that would save an airport-bound passenger exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds at a normal walking pace on an existing underground moving walkway.

That’s not just a staggeringly reckless waste of public money. It’s also a decision that threatens to kill the single most important public transit project in the national capital region — the Silver Line extension of Metrorail to Dulles — by driving its cost to $3.5 billion from $3.2 billion. . . .


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