By Liz Essley
Virginia lawmakers are considering creative and potentially expensive ways to keep tolls low on two roads they don't control: the Dulles Greenway and the Dulles Toll Road.
State leaders are now negotiating to buy the privately owned Greenway, a toll road west of Washington Dulles International Airport. And the General Assembly is considering legislation that would allow the state to borrow money through a bond issue to pay for the road's purchase and upkeep.
"I have to be able to negotiate an acceptable deal in terms of what we pay for it," said Del. Joe May, R-Leesburg, who is leading the push to buy the road. "I'm optimistic we're going to find a deal that works for both sides." . . .It is far from clear how these proposals will be received by Republicans from beyond northern Virginia on the House of Delegates Transportation Committee that May chairs or more broadly in the House of Delegates. It also appears to extend far beyond what Gov. McDonnell is willing to do for toll road relief in northern Virginia as well.
If nothing else, the two bills are an opportunity for the Republicans to better position their candidates in the General Assembly and statewide offices for election this November if we may be so cynical. Nonetheless, we wish Republican delegates May and Minchew, both from Loudoun County, the best in moving forward with this proposal to relieve the tremendous financial burden Greenway and Dulles toll road users will face in the years ahead.
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Once again, everybody is supposed to argue about who should pay the excessive prices for the Dulles Rail / Silver Line job; our so-called 'leaders' once again read the same tired script about how they are 'looking for ways to lower the tolls', and once again nobody questions the double price of the Dulles Rail / Silver Line Metrorail job.
ReplyDeleteWhy is that? The most glaring line items in public view - the rail station costs, and the parking garage costs, are about two times what they should be - and they were jacked up 22% and 29% respectively, between July 2011 and March 2012.
Doesn't the double-price estimate, and especially the huge jump in the estimates between July 2011 and March 2012, indicate (at a minimum) that there is a serious problem with cost estimation on this project? So why are the cost estimators not being called out to explain their remarkably high etimates?