Herndon Throws a Tantrum, Breaks Its Toys, Ruins It for Everyone
On behalf of the DC metropolitan area, I would personally like to extend my thanks to the Herndon, Virginia Town Council. You see, like many other Washingtonians, I was worried that future voyages to Dulles International Airport would be vastly different experiences. Instead of sitting comfortably in my car for about an hour (if you're lucky) and paying an exorbitant fee for long or short term parking (or hiring a price-gouging airport shuttle) I would be forced to sit sit comfortably on one of the cleanest transit systems in the nation, staring at marijuana ads (more on that later).
Thankfully, Herndon, with the best interests of its citizens in mind, stopped that from happening. The Washington Post reports:
The financing plan for the $3.4 billion Dulles rail project collapsed yesterday when the Herndon Town Council vetoed a special transit tax district, unraveling the campaign to build the 23-mile Metrorail extension and effectively halting long-term expansion plans for the Washington region's major train system.
The rail extension which would link Tysons Corner and Dulles to the Metro system is, effectively, dead. Why, you ask? Well here's how I see it. Due to funding constraints imposed by the Federal Transit Administration, the expansion was to be completed in two phases. The first would end with a stop at Wiehle Avenue, just shy of Herndon. The second would link Herndon and Dulles with the rest of the rail system. Herndon leaders did not want to pay for a rail project that would get to other municipalities before it reached Herndon. In fact the council approved an alternative proposal that extend building on the first phase of the rail project "beyond Wiehle Avenue to reach the town. But that was dismissed by state and Fairfax County rail organizers, who said the compromise was financially and operationally impossible."
So hats off to Herndon, I'll be thinking of you folks when I'm sitting in traffic on the Beltway, within sight of the Dulles Toll Road and it's one hour till my flight leaves. Huzzah!
Post Author:
cs | 09:20 AM |
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Yes, the Herndon Town Council is composed of a bunch of pricks, but the Dulles plan had its flaws, not the least of which was the number of stops involved before the airport - including three at Tyson's alone! Loudon/Fairfax is car country, so WMATA should focus more on commuter-style stations with park-and-ride lots instead of a stop at every intersection.
Also, would the line have run into the city, or would you have to transfer in Falls Church? I wouldn't want to do that with luggage.
I believe it would be a transfer.
I'm with Chris on this one. The Dulles plan certainly had its flaws (they needed to be running express trains from the airport, as they do with European airport-to-city trains), but it was the best chance for bringing rail transit to Dulles anytime in my lifetime. I'm sure now they'll start thinking about BRT, which is a bad idea all around, but will convince people that a Metrorail link isn't needed -- and continue to build up the insane traffic on the Dulles Toll Road and beyond.
The problem is that you can't run express trains into DC unless you add tracks to the orange line (which you can't unless you widen i-66 in the process, paving over a lot of businesses and other things in the problem. VRE runs to Manassas, but too far south to make a spur economical. They should have just done an orange line spur, with trains alternating between Vienna and Dulles. I don't think people would want to transfer for another line, so many stops from the city iteslf. If you do projects like this badly, even if you just want to get them done, it hurts prospects for funding better stuff later. That being said, Herndon sucks... still.
You said "sit sit" in your entry.
Thanks for the heads up alanjstr. Really appreciate it, really. It's always nice to have any meaningless inconsequential typo corrected corrected.
Try not to antagonize the readers, please. Unless it's the Why I Hate DC guy. In that case, antagonize all you want.
