Fairfax Supervisors Decide to Go Ahead With Metro Vote

FAIRFAX, Va. - A vote taking place in two weeks could change the region for the next century or derail a 23-mile Metro extension to Dulles International Airport.

With hundreds of tunnel supporters looking on, the Fairfax Board of Supervisors decided on Monday to go ahead with a vote on June 18.

The county has to approve 16 percent of the funding for the $2.6 billion project.

But the board is unhappy with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which would build the extension, because the board still has not seen the contract.

"We are not gonna have a vote on the June 18 if that contract is not available to the board," Connolly says.

The secrecy of the contract, and the lack of competitive bidding are two of the reasons why the tunnel supporters want to revisit the concept.

Some board members say they are unwilling to reconsider a tunnel, fearing it will set the project back years.

The Board has indicated in the past that it would prefer a tunnel but Connolly says the Federal Transit Administration has produced another report backing the aerial route.

The tunnel would cause "complications that could add as much as $300 million to the cost of the project and could delay it as much as three years," Connolly says.

"That was a pretty sobering analysis for all of us," he says.

Cost estimates for the first 11 miles of the 23-mile project are about $2.4 billion, with the whole project in the neighborhood of $4 billion.

But Tysonstunnel.org President Scott Monet says the FTA still left the final approval to the locals.

"The petition response said it's up to the locals to decide whether they wish for competitive bidding and whether they wish for a tunnel. They did not say that would jeopardize the $900 million," he says. "They need to reiterate how important competitive bidding is and how important that tunnel for Tysons Corner is."

(Copyright 2007 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)