Six years in the proposing, a plan to build a 23-mile, partly private rail line in northern Virginia got its most significant boost June 10 when the state received the green light from the Federal Transit Administration to begin preliminary engineering. It then signed a contract with Bechtel Corp. and Washington Group International, the project’s joint venture champion. The line, which will connect an existing Washington, D.C., Metro subway line to Dulles International Airport, could cost as much as $4 billion. It is the first rail project pushed under Virginia’s decade-old public-private transportation law and could be a harbinger of how future transit jobs will be achieved as public funds shrink or face delays, observers say. Click here to view chart
“Today the Dulles Rail project moves out of the study phase and into action,†said Virginia Transportation Secretary Whitt Clement. Adds Karen J. Rae, director of the state’s Dept. of Rail and Transportation, “This project has been on the radar screens for 40 years.†The new line would extend Metro, in two phases, from a stop at West Fall Church, Va., to the airport, with key links to the booming areas of Tysons Corner and Reston. It could be operational in 2009.
Under the arrangement, FTA has given the project, part of its New Starts program, a “recommended†rating and will commit federal funding toward the estimated $45.4 million for the joint venture, Dulles Transit Partners LLC, for preliminary engineering. Rae says the figure is 8% below the estimate provided to the state by its independent engineer, URS.
FTA is still moving cautiously, agreeing now to approve only the earliest stage of work on the line’s first 11-mile stretch. The approval “does not guarantee that the project will be approved to enter the final design phase of project development,†says the agency. “The New Starts process is by far the most aggressive scrutiny that a project receives,†Rae conceded, but she said the state would move ahead with—and partly fund—additional preliminary engineering for the line’s 12-mile second phase to Dulles.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which built and now operates the subway system in the Washington area, will be paid as “technical manager†for up-front engineering and will eventually be the new line’s owner-operator. “With WMATA’s expertise, FTA is very comfortable that we have the technical capacity,†said Rae.
The 15-month preliminary engineering phase will be critical for Bechtel and Washington Group to develop a lump-sum price for design-build and negotiate successfully with Virginia officials to stay connected with the project.
“This announcement is a first step in a long process,†says Bechtel’s Roger Picard, who will be project director. “The firms are here to build a project, not just do...