Loudoun :
Fairfax Underground
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
A Metro plan that has gone off the rails
Posted by:
i hatez traffic
()
Date: April 24, 2011 08:16PM
EDITORIAL: A Metro plan that has gone off the rails
Wednesday, Apr. 20 by Staff | 11 comments | Email this story
It’s been less than two weeks since the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority opted for an underground Metrorail station at Dulles International Airport, but the list of those criticizing last week’s 9-4 vote is still growing.
That’s often the reaction when $300 million expenditures are made without considering the thoughts of those tasked with paying the tab. In this case, we’re talking about MWAA ignoring protests from Fairfax and Loudoun county officials, whose residents will shoulder a good chunk of the project’s cost.
Mame Reilly, who chairs the airport board’s Dulles Committee, certainly didn’t help matters when she explained her reasoning for supporting the underground option.
“We would be settling for a second-class station at a first-class airport, and I just simply find that to be unacceptable,” said Reilly of an above-ground option.
By that reasoning, is it acceptable to add a 1,200-square-foot deck when you’re 60 days late on the mortgage? How about granite counter tops and a steam shower?
Leading up to last week’s vote, Fairfax, Loudoun and Virginia Department of Transportation officials had spent months trying to convince the airports authority to build an above-ground train station at the airport that would have cost about $300 million less than going underground. It’s worth noting that three of the five Virginia appointees on the MWAA board voted against the underground station, saying the additional costs and associated risks with the alignment are not worth the benefits.
The airports authority board brushed those concerns aside, basically saying the fact that the underground station could be located 600 feet closer to the terminal justified the cost. By our math, that’s roughly $500,000 per foot—or $1.5 million per stride.
We understand MWAA’s desire to build a state-of-the-art station with all the bells and whistles included. After all, who among us hasn’t walked into a car dealership determined to stick with the cloth interior only to emerge with all-leather seats and satellite radio?
But MWAA had an opportunity to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the project’s bottom line, and chose not to.
Board members who voted for the project say the underground design will allow for savings in other areas, including a revised tunnel and station design. The underground option, they say, also allows the station’s air conditioning to come from an existing airport facility.
Good to know, but those upgrades probably save closer to $30 million than $300 million.
At the end of the day, that $270 million difference will likely be made up by taxpayers and toll road users, neither of whom has much say in the final decision.
MWAA officials have been on the losing end of many public relations battles during the last two to three years. When they got an opportunity to turn things around last week, they passed.
Wednesday, Apr. 20 by Staff | 11 comments | Email this story
It’s been less than two weeks since the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority opted for an underground Metrorail station at Dulles International Airport, but the list of those criticizing last week’s 9-4 vote is still growing.
That’s often the reaction when $300 million expenditures are made without considering the thoughts of those tasked with paying the tab. In this case, we’re talking about MWAA ignoring protests from Fairfax and Loudoun county officials, whose residents will shoulder a good chunk of the project’s cost.
Mame Reilly, who chairs the airport board’s Dulles Committee, certainly didn’t help matters when she explained her reasoning for supporting the underground option.
“We would be settling for a second-class station at a first-class airport, and I just simply find that to be unacceptable,” said Reilly of an above-ground option.
By that reasoning, is it acceptable to add a 1,200-square-foot deck when you’re 60 days late on the mortgage? How about granite counter tops and a steam shower?
Leading up to last week’s vote, Fairfax, Loudoun and Virginia Department of Transportation officials had spent months trying to convince the airports authority to build an above-ground train station at the airport that would have cost about $300 million less than going underground. It’s worth noting that three of the five Virginia appointees on the MWAA board voted against the underground station, saying the additional costs and associated risks with the alignment are not worth the benefits.
The airports authority board brushed those concerns aside, basically saying the fact that the underground station could be located 600 feet closer to the terminal justified the cost. By our math, that’s roughly $500,000 per foot—or $1.5 million per stride.
We understand MWAA’s desire to build a state-of-the-art station with all the bells and whistles included. After all, who among us hasn’t walked into a car dealership determined to stick with the cloth interior only to emerge with all-leather seats and satellite radio?
But MWAA had an opportunity to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the project’s bottom line, and chose not to.
Board members who voted for the project say the underground design will allow for savings in other areas, including a revised tunnel and station design. The underground option, they say, also allows the station’s air conditioning to come from an existing airport facility.
Good to know, but those upgrades probably save closer to $30 million than $300 million.
At the end of the day, that $270 million difference will likely be made up by taxpayers and toll road users, neither of whom has much say in the final decision.
MWAA officials have been on the losing end of many public relations battles during the last two to three years. When they got an opportunity to turn things around last week, they passed.
Re: A Metro plan that has gone off the rails
Posted by:
Ofc Friendly
()
Date: April 26, 2011 05:13AM
They need to do the new rail underground all the way up, if not every time it snows it will be closed down.