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Legislators pressure FTA on rail
With the future of the Dulles rail extension riding on a Federal Transit Administration decision later this month, local stakeholders are making last-minute efforts to either push for approval or delay the project further."We don't know where the FTA is on this project," said Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer.
Last week Homer called a gathering of Northern Virginia's General Assembly delegation, virtually all of whom signed a letter to the FTA pledging unqualified support for rail in the Dulles Corridor.
"Please take the necessary immediate action to advance rail in the Dulles Corridor," the letter reads.
The letter made no mention of the much-discussed tunnel option, although many of the northern Fairfax representatives had campaigned on their support for the tunnel.
"At the end of the day, the bottom line is rail to Dulles ... we have to move forward," said Del. Margi Vanderhye (D-McLean).
The General Assembly letter echoed a similar missive signed by the entire Northern Virginia congressional delegation and a full-page ad in the Washington Post from the Dulles Corridor Rail Association.
The exception to the General Assembly's wave of support was Centreville Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R), who sent his own letter to the FTA urging that they reject the project.
"Rather than waste more federal, state and local resources trying to make this dreadful project work, we should kill the project forthwith," Cuccinelli wrote.
Dranesville Supervisor John Foust (R) has urged the FTA to take a "timeout" on the project.
"The best approach would be a timeout, to allow time to give a fair decision to the tunnel without the project going to the end of the line for funding," Foust said.
According to TysonsTunnel.org's Scott Monett, the FTA has granted this "timeout" status to other large transit projects in the past. The FTA declined to comment on whether this was an option for the Dulles rail project.
"We were told by the secretary that if there were to be a timeout, the project is as good as dead," said Vanderhye.
Vanderhye endorsed Homer's initiative despite pressure from the McLean Citizen's Association, urging her to ask for a timeout as well.
State Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Vienna) also sent a letter to the FTA asking for a timeout, but directly contradicted himself a week later by signing Homer's letter asking for the project to be approved before Feb. 1.
"I'm not taking my letter back, I'm trying to walk a fine line," Petersen said Monday, adding that before the meeting with Homer he did not have all the information.
"I don't want to see the whole project disappear. ... I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater," Petersen said. "To prevent that, I'll take a little bit of embarrassment."
Representatives of the FTA declined to comment on how much final design approval for the project would be influenced by the flood of correspondence. According to Homer, if work doesn't begin on the rail project before Feb. 1, the project will run aground on "significant cost escalations." Fairfax County and Virginia have already spent about $120 million on preliminary work on the project, money that would presumably go to waste if the FTA does not grant final design approval.
"I don't even want to speculate on what happens if the project isn't approved," Homer said.
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