Metro to Tyson's Corner and Dulles dead?

[VAGator]

It looks like Metro rail to Tyson's Corner and Dulles is just about dead for now. Please anybody from Fairfax County, don't complain about traffic, and stop asking for I-66 to be widen.


Good Job Guys (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29790-2003Dec2.html)

[DonTallPaul]

That is amazingly foolish. That corridor needs public transit badly and even it relatively well setup for it. Fairfax needs to get it together. If they don't want a 20% increase in real estate tax, at least be creative and find alternative funding.

[joey]

I'm a major proponent of Dulles rail, but I can appreciate Herndon's concerns.

Because there isn't enough federal money available to finance the entire Falls Church - Dulles corridor as rail immediately, they're splitting it into two phases (FC - Tysons, Tysons-Dulles . . . actually the split is one stop west of Tysons, but it's essentially getting to Tysons in Phase I).

The agreements are asking everyone across the entire corridor to fund both phases, though only Phase I is up for a vote now. The agreement, however, says, that the financing/tax deal can be scrapped at any time by a veto of any of the areas' councils/boards. Herndon is terribly worried that they'll be paying heavy taxes (for being in the corridor) for rail to Tysons, when after Phase I, the boards in Tysons could easily veto Phase II later.

In this situation, Herndon would be left paying taxes for Tysons Metro, potentially losing them business tenants to Tysons, when they may never get rail themselves (if the Tysons boards, realizing they already have what they want, can kill the second phase so easily.)

If the agreements had been modified to make it more difficult to veto Phase II of funding, I think Herndon would have been less opposed to it. Herndon really wants rail in the corridor and is willing to pay its share. . . they just don't want to be screwed in the end b/c of the split.