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Playing the blame game
Despite the prospect of a “cooling off” period to better assess rail in the Dulles corridor, it appears time, money and patience for the project are in short supply. Assessing blame for its problems, however, is not.The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which questioned the project's management and yanked 900 million federal dollars off the table last week, is taking most of the heat. Arrows are also being pointed at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), Metro, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) and a half a dozen others with public and private interests.
Truth be told, everyone owns at least a small piece of the pie.
Less debatable is that this project has long been plagued by critical questions – cost questions, management questions, engineering questions and, perhaps most important, ridership questions.
While FTA administrator Jim Simpson has drawn sharp criticism for less than stellar communication skills, his reasons for pulling funds should not be ignored. The FTA is in the business of assessing large-scale transit projects. It has seen $1 billion estimates mushroom into $13 billion boondoggles, and it understands the variables involved in building and operating 23-mile rail extensions in the 21st century.
We'll take Simpson at his word when he says the nation's capital needs a rail connection to its largest airport and that the FTA did everything it could to get Dulles Rail through the "uprights," even lowering them by yard or two. We also believe him when he says this project fluctuated between a "D" and an "F" in just about every gradable category.
At the end of the day, it was a question of taking a multi-billion-dollar leap of faith or pulling the plug altogether. FTA opted for the latter.
So what's next?
For starters, fix Metro. Yes, it has served our region well for nearly three decades, but it's now experiencing crowding, breakdowns, shortages of equipment and other troubling challenges. The lack of dedicated funding for Metro sat atop the FTA's list of concerns, as did the new Silver Line's ability to mesh with the existing system. Placing 50,000 new riders on an already-overtaxed system will only exacerbate the problem.
There also has to be a thorough scrubbing of the project's management, which has resulted in continually changing and upward-trending cost estimates. MWAA has never been in the business of managing heavy rail projects. Can they be sure this extension gets built for under $5 billion?
Beginning this week, elected officials in the area would be well-advised to do the following:
1. Begin seeking alternate sources of funding.
2. Set up a dedicated funding stream for Metro.
3. Undergo a thorough cost-benefit analysis of rail with and without a tunnel. Relieving congestion and moving people should take priority over real estate and density interests.
As a region, we can't afford to let this project fade to black. Someone somewhere must step up and show leadership. The "we're owed rail because we live in the shadow of Washington, D.C." argument simply isn't going to do it.
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