To the Editor:
In just a few weeks our Loudoun Board of Supervisors will decide on the largest financial transaction in the county’s history. The annual expenditure will be the second-largest budget item after schools.
Supervisor Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge) has circulated an online survey soliciting constituent input on the Dulles Rail project. I believe her intentions are good, but I ask her, and all the other supervisors, to educate the public with a series of thorough presentations sharing both sides of the rail issue.
Many in our county have spent countless hours looking for answers to the basic questions about Rail to Loudoun, and have found substantial reason to conclude three things:
- The construction cost to build this is enormous, currently estimated at $350 million (roughly the cost of 7 new schools}. With interest the total cost will be $750 million (the cost of 15 new schools).
- The mandatory contribution to Metro would be astronomical, but the actual amount is being concealed. The best estimate is a $100 million/year subsidy to Metro, FOREVER.
- The economic benefit of this project is dubious at best, with a reputable study predicting this will be a perpetual loser. Their best estimate is $8 million/year in income against a $20 million/year 30-year mortgage payment for building the line, plus the $100 million/year Metro subsidy. In simple math that is a $112 million annual loss.
With that said, polling people on their Rail opinions before educating them on such a weighty decision is not responsible leadership. The good news is that Loudoun can opt out if they choose to and the rail will go to Dulles anyway.
Janet is a dedicated public servant and I hope she and the rest of our supervisors will prove themselves in the years to come.
The key to a good decision is good information, and then putting that good information to use. Henry Ford said, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Let’s help our board think this through.
Sincerely,
Jon Garber Sr.
Additionally, why are we judging rail on a different criteria that roads? Every road we build in this county has a -100% ROI. Unless we put toll booths on all of them, they are all guaranteed to be perpetual losers. Does that mean we should stop building roads? Why are we judging rail differently? At least Metro will generate revenue to offset some of the costs. Lastly, if you looks at the undeveloped land directly around the station locations, I believe the county has put us in a fantastic position for commercial development to thrive. Often times, stations go in in locations where the majority of the surrounding land has already been built on. We have many large empty tracts that would be ideal places for class A office space, giving us a far better chance of luring large employers (and the tax dollars they bring) to our county.
People need to force their 'leaders' to get those costs under control. Our leaders, the MWAA and certainly the FTA ought to know this - but they are certainly not acting appropriately. Dulles Rail Phase II is about five times the size of the Franconia-Springfield Metro extension, but it costs more than ten times as much, allowing for inflation since 1997. That means the individual costs are easily two times what they should be, or more. There is no justification for this overcost. The Dulles Rail Phase II Rt 28 station cost, the only station cost visible to the pubic (thanks to the FTA review in 2011), is almost two times the cost of a comparable Metro station built in posh Fairfield, Connecticut in 2011. There is no justification for this overcost. All five Dulles Rail Phase II parking garages are listed at easily 70% more than they should cost, compared to other similar garages in the USA. There is no justification for this overcost. The Dulles Rail road toll plan is defective. Sharon Bulova, Chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, acknowledges this. Stop the madness! Make your 'leaders' review Dulles Rail Phase II costs, before you get signed up for double-priced rail!
I agree that finding ways to control costs is the way to go. I don't understand why many of the anti-rail folks immediately call for the BOS to opt-out entirely. Shouldn't we be calling on them to find more ways to save tax payers money instead of leaping to the most extreme option of opting-out altogether? The last I had heard, it sounds as if private companies are interested in building the parking garages, meaning it won't require taxpayer money. Those are the types of solutions we should be working toward. Not killing the entire thing.
Read this and you will know what you need to know. Urban Transit by Randal O'Toole http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/urban-transit
No thanks. Compliments of the rest of the county? Last I checked, I pay taxes here too. Seems I have just as much a right as you to voice my opinion on how they should be spent.
Good people of Brambleton, you are being decieved. Buses can do a far better job for a fraction of the cost. Bus transit allows you to live and work as you do now. It expands as your community expands. But it gets overlooked because it does not facilitate the cash flow to developers and politicians. Please read this (below) and ask yourselves if you really need that Metro ball and chain...because that ball has a fuse on it. “Recapturing Global Leadership in Bus Rapid Transit, A Survey of Select U.S. Cities by Annie Weinstock, Walter Hook, Michael Replogle, and Ramon CruzMay 2011 http://www.itdp.org/documents/20110526ITDP_USBRT_Report-LR.pdf
http://www.cnu.org/sites/www.cnu.org/files/DebunkingCato.pdf You got me. I'm not real. I'm just a phantom. My hobbies include caring about projects in counties where I don't live, and lying about where I pay taxes. (sarcasm off)
If it is so "sustainable" why is Metro in the hole for $13 BILLION in delayed maintenance. In my world you skip over the stuff that bleeds money, and you rally against things that redistribute wealth away from things that work to prop up losers like Metrorail.
1) First, I'm not sure why we keep holding rail to a different standard that roads. Unless we put up tolls on every road in the county, they're technically all -100% ROI projects. The fact that Metro can support 43% of its daily operating overhead is more than I can say for any road that we've built. The same applies to schools. Does that mean we should stop building roads and schools? 2) In regard to OPM, again, does that mean I should oppose the building of any roads and schools in the county that are outside of my neighborhood? I've probably been on just a small percentage of the roads in the western part of the county, so I could argue that any new road there provides no benefit to me yet that me and my friends have to pay for them. New schools built outside of my neighborhood's district provide no benefit to me either. Should I oppose the new school being built in Lansdowne? That's part of living in a community. I'd be interested in knowing what percentage of the county's tax base comes from Ashburn, Sterling, and Leesburg (to a lesser extend) since these are the areas that will benefit most. The same could be said of my state taxes. Northern Virginia disproportionately funds projects in other portions of the state. We get back less than we put in. Should I oppose anything built in Richmond or the Hampton Roads area because it's being built with OPM?
Everybody is supposed to rush headong into this expensive rail deal - and no rail tax district agreement has been considered?