Letter to Board Decries Metro Plan
Potomac Green resident questions benefit of proposed Silver Line.
Dear Loudoun Board of Supervisors,
I believe Supervisor Janet Clarke's letter to her constituents was very thorough, truthful and enlightening as to the politics of the Dulles Rail decision.
My position is:
Cost and Funding
- Determine real current and potential future costs.
- No tax or fee increase to the taxpayers.
- The ones with financial interest should pay.
June 4 meeting citizen input
- Ignore comments from those with a Financial Stake or Development Interest.
Toll increase on Dulles Toll Road (DTR) and Greenway
- Inevitable.
- The effect is more traffic on free roads.
The real transportation Issue is more traffic on free roads because of the toll increases. How are you addressing the real issue?
I am a Potomac Green resident. Mr. Williams is my supervisor. I believe there is no direct benefit to me as a result of rail to Loudoun. Currently, I do not use the DTR or Greenway because of the cost and will not in the future.
If the rail was going all the way to Leesburg, there might be a reasonable benefit to the County. But, it is only going 2 miles into the County and I believe the benefits to be very small compared to the cost now and in the future.
Bob Miller
[Editor’s note: The Metro project will not impact tolls on the Dulles Greenway, which is privately owned. Dulles Toll Road tolls would be used to fund part of the project.]
D Davis
11:02 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012
I am also a Potomac Green resident & I find it unimaginable that there is so much controversy over METRO. Loudoun County, the #1 county in the nation, needs the METRO to Dulles International Airport with a stop in Ashburn. When the A/P first opened it was a ghost town for a number of years. LOOK AT IT NOW. KEEP UP WITH THE GROWTH & THE TIMES, LOUDOUN COUNTY, VOTE TO GET THAT SILVER LINE ROLLING.
Bob Bruhns
4:02 pm on Friday, June 15, 2012
Billions of borrowed dollars for rail is not the way to jump-start the economy - it's the way to a debt spiral.
Consider a serious bus system instead. Set up transit routes, put in dedicated bus lanes - entire dedicated bus roads if traffic demands, in the rail right of way and on new road construction - and extend rail in moderate distance increments as traffic demands.
Unlike Fairfax County, Loudoun County doesn't even have businesses at the station locations to tax yet, unless you make the tax zones ridiculously big. Doesn't it make sense to tax the ones who really hit the jackpot, and give the ones further away a break? And the ones out around Lovettsville? Please, they get very little out of this
If you really insist on RAIL - the obscene profits will be made by those within 1/4 mile of the stations, so either twist their arms and make them borrow to pay big now, or figure the whole county has to front the money - but needs to get it back later! And don't count on getting it from the proceeds from the rail business - that was just a sales gimmick to sell you the expense. Let the station landowners pay elevated taxes for a few years, if they can't pay them now. If the station area landowners aren't rolling in money real soon, then this rail project didn't perform as advertised, did it.