Trouble on the line

The price tag for the largest public works project in Virginia history keeps getting bigger. The latest projected cost for the first phase of the two-part Metrorail extension through Tysons Corner to Dulles International Airport is $2.83 billion, significantly more than the $1.52 billion projected in December 2004. Completion was then expected by 2009. The entire project was originally expected to cost $4 billion.

The first phase is dependent upon obtaining $900 million in federal funding, authorized last year. To get that, however, the project has to secure a full funding grant agreement from the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA), which applies a cost-effectiveness standard. This week the FTA determined that federal funding is contingent on cutting $250 million from the project.

Delays contribute to cost overruns; so did the way the contractor, a Bechtel-subsidiary called Dulles Transit Partners, was selected. The FTA criticized the early awarding of the contract and the limited competition for the contract in a report last month. For every day after Aug. 1 that the final design has not been approved, a penalty accrues.

Residents and advocacy groups have contributed to the delay. One of them, represented by the Web site tysonstunnel.org, funded by a Tysons Corner developer, wants to tunnel under the shopping district instead of building elevated tracks. Tunneling under Tysons Corner has never been a viable option, and planners are searching now to find a place to cut $250 million from the project. The current plan violates the FTA’s strict cost-effectiveness standards; the added cost of a tunnel would have made reaching the standard all but impossible.

Cutting $250 million should be achievable if the current schedule can be kept, but that won’t be easy. A continuing struggle by residents, business owners and developers is inevitable. Extending Metrorail to Tysons is essential to reducing traffic congestion, but the first phase of the project isn’t expected to be completed for another six years, and then only if the planners and builders avoid repeating expensive mistakes.