OPINION:
After screeching to a merciful halt in January, the Dulles rail project is now chugging along once again. On Wednesday, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced $158.7 million in planning funds for the $5 billion extension, which has suffered significant mismanagement. The green light is surprising. Only three months ago, FTA Administrator James Simpson rightly scorned the project for its managerial disarray. He withheld the first $900 million of an anticipated $1.5 billion federal contribution, explaining, “We fund projects that are an A, B or C. This project is a D or F.”
No new letter grade has been offered. What changed? Surely the level of lobbying pressure did. Area businesses, under the direction of the Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce and other coalitions, spent the months since January burning up phone lines to convince the White House, the Department of Transportation and relevant allies to redirect the project. The effort appears to have paid off.
Not much else appears to have changed. If the devastating criticisms levelled at the project in January by the FTA have been addressed, there is not much public evidence. These included doubts that the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority can build the line (it is still slated to); questions of whether Metro can operate it under extreme budget pressures and in the absence of dedicated funding (it will still try); and a declaration that the project had failed cost-effectiveness standards (hence the “D or F”). In the bland world of government transportation analysis, this is about as vivid as it gets. Reading between the lines of the bureaucratese, it seemed clear that federal officials feared Dulles rail is turning into this region’s Big Dig.
We may find out. This $159 million completes the planning phase, which one safely assumes would not be necessary if the project were dead. At an estimated federal contribution of $1.5 billion, we all have an interest in seeing the managerial woes and planning shortfalls soon remedied. Of course, the same can be said of any number of expensive, overrun-prone, federally supported infrastructure projects around the country in recent years.
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