Today’s DC Examiner decimates the idea that extending Metro to Dulles is a good idea.
Riding the $5.14 billion Dulles Rail extension will take twice as long as taking a $300 million Bus Rapid Transit vehicle (BRT) to the same place. That’s right, a 25-minute express bus trip from the Pentagon to Reston would take 57 minutes on the proposed Metrorail extension and cost much more per trip for a lower level of service
But wait! There’s more!
Had the board accepted the [Federal Transit Administration]’s prior offer to pay 90 percent of the cost of a BRT demonstration project from Falls Church to Dulles International Airport, airline passengers would be using it today instead of having to wait until 2016 for the rail extension. Even then, the airport station is projected to have the lowest number of passengers of all 75 Metro stops.
Regardless of where you stand on the tunnel vs. elevated track in Tysons debate, this whole idea just keeps getting worse and worse. Obviously, transporting passengers to and from Dulles in a time and cost efficient manner is not a factor in the reason Metro is being extended to Dulles, but merely a pretext.
Filed under: Fairfax Politics, NOVA Politics, Transportation
I always say, if something smells fishy in the public domain…follow the money. It could be that a lot of “consulting fees,” or other forms of remuneration, from contractors ready to profit from this are making the rounds.
[...] Virginia Virtucon [...]
[...] Dulles is about to be buried — not under Tysons Corner, but in the graveyard of bad ideas. (Bus rapid transit to the airport is a much more cost effective solution that can be instituted much ….) The only way this thing survives at all is if they cut costs drastically. That means no way, no [...]
[...] NOVA Politics, Transportation. trackback Today’s WashPo reminds us why Metro to Dulles is a bad idea that should be put down once and for [...]
[...] on January 18, 2008 by Riley We’ve been saying for some time now that rail to Dulles is a boondoggle and the project should be killed. Now we learn that Sen. Ken Cuccinelli has come out in opposition [...]