A public hearing held tonight (March 20) by the Fairfax Board of Supervisors is the panel's last big opportunity to hear from taxpayers prior to its June 7th vote whether to approve construction of Dulles Rail Phase 2. However, the project's final Environmental Impact Statement is eight years old, and economic conditions have changed dramatically since 2004. Before making a decision of such magnitude, supervisors must publicly release updated figures on ridership, revenue and operating subsidies. That's even more essential now that county taxpayers are on the hook to build parking garages and a Metro station at Route 28. Those costs, transferred to the county to make Phase 2 appear less expensive, were not part of the original deal.
If the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation have such updated figures, they haven't released them to the public. Nor have any of these government or quasi-governmental entities ever held a public hearing on the project's rickety financing structure. Fairfax supervisors must now question all of the underlying assumptions made in preparing cost projections to extend Metrorail to Washington Dulles International Airport, currently estimated at $2.8 billion. . . .Click here for the rest of this editorial.
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