Opinion: The Dulles Metro station isn’t the problem. The Toll Road increases are., Washington Post, July 29, 2011

By Robert Clarke Brown, Published: July 29

At last, Northern Virginia’s elected officials have gotten what they wanted. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has acceded to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s request to change the original Dulles Metrorail project alignment — an alignment agreed to just four years ago by all parties — and to build an inferior station at Dulles International Airport. Unfortunately, getting what they wanted won’t fix the real problem facing Northern Virginians.

That’s because the problem confronting Dulles Metrorail is not the project’s cost but high tolls. . .
. . . It should hardly be a shock, then, that the tolls needed to support Dulles Metrorail will be eye-popping. To be sure, the secretary’s process, by reducing Phase 2 costs (and shifting $400 million of costs to Fairfax and Loudoun), will have some mitigating effect on tolls. But even at the $2.8 billion cost the secretary has found acceptable, today’s $2 toll is projected to be $13 in 20 years, $17 in 30 years. . . .

Robert Clarke Brown, a professor of finance at an Ohio university, is a member of the MWAA Financial Committee.  For the rest of this article, click here.