WashPo: LaHood meeting a 'reality check' for Dulles Rail

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's meeting with Virginia officials about a proposed expansion of Washington's MetroRail to Dulles International Airport should be a wake-up call for the panel overseeing the project, a newspaper editorial board said Thursday.

The Washington Post said in an editorial that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is overseeing the project, should take heed of LaHood's statements that the federal government cannot cover cost overruns for the project.

Airport officials want to locate the new station at Dulles, which is the main reason the Metro line is being built underground. Officials from Virginia's Fairfax and Loundon counties, whose constituents are paying for the extension, point out that the underground station would cost $330 million more to build than an above-ground stop.

Critics attribute the airport authority's instance on the more expensive option to the fact that its members are appointed, rather than elected, officials. But the editorial said LaHood delivered an "unusually blunt message" the airport officials should take heed of.

"The federal government 'is not a cash cow,' he said; it's not going to ride to the project's rescue," the editorial board wrote. 

LaHood said he would met again with mediators from both sides again next month, and that the federal government was still committed to the project. The airport board should use that time to reconsider its stance on the finances of the project, which has already begun being built.

"[LaHood's] comment about the feds’ limited resources should have come as a bracing bit of truth for the airports authority board, which runs Dulles and Reagan National airports as well as the Dulles Toll Road," the editorial said. "Two months ago, the board voted 9 to 4 in favor of building an underground Metro station at Dulles rather than a surface one, which would add $330 million to the cost of the Silver Line yet save passengers scarcely three minutes of travel time.

"It’s time for the airports authority to get serious about getting the Silver Line built responsibly and affordably," the editorial concluded. "Cost-cutting — starting with the underground boondoggle at Dulles — is the key to making the project work."