Frank Wolf Ignores Traffic Problems

In the inevitable consequence of the failure of Assembly Republicans to allow Virginia to do anything about the commonwealth's transportation funding deficit, a large number of Loudoun traffic projects have been placed in limbo. After VDOT announced a 44% drop in transportation funding for Loudoun back in April, the Board of Supervisors were forced to look at what projects would be affected. On Friday, we found out.

County officials have been forced to scale back their six-year road building plan to reflect a 44 percent drop in projected state transportation spending. For Loudoun, the decrease in projected state funding totals more than $16 million for the six-year period.

The revised plan, if approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors, will reduce funding for improvements to Belmont Ridge Road, Route 287 and the South King Street Trail, as well as engineering and surveying countywide. Funding will be eliminated for construction on Edwards Ferry Road, Waxpool Road and Creamer Lane and for preliminary engineering for improvements to Lincoln Road. - LoudounExtra

Meanwhile, our Representative in Congress has been hunkered down and hoping the voters of the 10th District won't notice that he has done absolutely nothing to help solve our transportation funding problems. Perhaps Frank Wolf could have used some of his vaunted experience and influence to help the roads funding problems in his district? That may be asking too much, though. After all, he was completely out of the loop on the problems with funding for rail to Reston, so that experience and influence is worth less than a hill of beans these days.

The failure of Republicans in the House of Delegates to join a solution on roads money in Virginia puts all the Federal money for metro to Dulles at risk once again. One might expect Frank Wolf, as the most senior Virginia Republican in the House of Representatives, to take an interest in activities in Richmond that put a Federal project of such concern to his constituents at risk. After all, he has no problem sticking his nose in Richmond's business when it suits his political purposes. We might have expected Frank Wolf to use his influence with his own party in Richmond to help fix the roads funding problems in his district and put funding for rail to Dulles on a more secure footing. We might have expected that, but we would have been disappointed.

This year, Congressman Wolf seems to be too busy trying to raise rel-election money and echoing The Executive to bother with the signature Federal project in his district. Apparently, a quixotic quest to deal with tolls on 267 is more important than fixing the real road and rail funding crisis in his Commonwealth. Frank Wolf is hoping the voters won't notice his abandonment of their interests on this issue.

Too bad we've noticed and will hold Frank Wolf, and Republicans in the Assembly, accountable. Judy Feder will do a much better job of managing our Federal interests in Congress than Frank Wolf's ignore-and-dodge antics. Go Judy!

Second-Worst Gridlock in the Country...and Getting Worse

Here's some depressing reading:

The Washington-area commute is the country's second-worst after Los Angeles, according to a study released last year by the Texas Transportation Institute.

Interstate 66, which cuts across Northern Virginia, is so congested that a fender bender can cause motorists to spend hours traveling the 24 miles from Haymarket to I-495, where most of the traffic snarls occur.

There's still no train that goes all the way from Washington to Dulles International Airport, some 40 years after plans were first laid. The federal government earlier this year stunned state officials by indicating it didn't want to kick in money for a $5 billion project to extend the rail system to the airport, effectively torpedoing it for now.

Obviously, this isn't all Frank Wolf's fault. Still, you've got to wonder what Wolf's been doing about this situation since 1980, when he was first elected to Congress. I mean, 27 years and all we got was this lousy (and ever worsening) traffic congestion? Seriously, though, how could Wolf have failed to get Metro to Dulles done in 27 years, especially given that he was in the majority for a good chunk of that time? Is that a record of accomplishment that 10th district voters want to reward with yet another term in Congress? Nope, didn't think so.

This is Humorous

I don't know about you, but I find this to be humorous:

IT'S EARMARK TIME
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., requested federal money for two projects. One would provide more money for anti-gang and drug task forces in Virginia. The other would continue funding mass transit upgrades in the Dulles corridor.

First, I like the headline, "It's earmark time." Second, I love the part about funding "mass transit upgrades in the Dulles corridor." Uh, Congressman? Don't you think it's a little late for that now that the Metro to Dulles project is all but dead, courtesy of the Bush Administration and your own stubbornness ("No bid deal to Bechtel or bust," is that your motto?) By the way, why didn't you use some of your great earmarking powers several years ago to make sure that NOVA got federal money to build this important project instead of waiting until it was being given last rites? Hello?

WTOP on Rail to Dulles Debacle: local leaders "should have seen this coming"

I've heard people attempting to make excuses for Frank Wolf on the Tysons Tunnel debacle. This, despite the fact that he's been a powerful Congressman for years (decades? centuries?), yet was totally caught off guard by the Federal Transit Administration's objections to the project as currently constituted? Now, WTOP's "Sprawl & Crawl Reporter," Adam Tuss, weighs in:

...you have to wonder if this project was dead before it even got off the ground. The FTA makes a number of strong arguments for why it has a problem with investing nearly $900 million in a project that may end up costing a lot more. It questions Metro's ability to run the extension, given the transit agency's less than stellar reputation recently.

In addition, to believe that local leaders had no idea this project was in serious trouble until a few weeks ago is naive. They should have seen this coming.

So, why didn't Frank Wolf see this coming? Was he too busy doing...well, whatever it is he does up on Capitol Hill? Perhaps if he had listened to his constituents, maybe attended meetings like this one, he wouldn't have been so surprised? But, then again, that would require Wolf to actually care what his constituents think, as opposed to what "Big Dig" Bechtel thinks. Priorities, priorities.

Major Wolf Contributor's Major Distortions on Metro to Dulles

I was looking through the FEC donor information for Frank Wolf, and the name "Gary Nakamoto" caught my eye. On November 27, 2007, Mr. Nakamoto -- the CEO of Base Technologies, a "McLean-based provider of information technology services," and Chairman of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce -- gave the Frank Wolf campaign $2,300. Nothing wrong with that, but I find it interesting that Mr. Nakamoto also is busy making the "common sense," "business friendly" case for building the rail-to-Dulles project, one of Frank Wolf's top priorities. And, of course, there's nothing wrong with extending Metro to Dulles Airport. Except, as I explained the other day, there are a number of flaws in Mr. Nakamoto's argument:

1. Nakamoto appears to dismiss all objections, questions, or concerns about the project (no-bid contract to Bechtel, problems with MWAA and the rest of the Metro system, cost, secrecy, lack of "smart growth" benefits in Tysons with an "aerial alignment," etc., etc.) as "all that noise." Nice rhetorical turn of phrase, setting himself up as the only one who can cut through the noise and get to the "common sense" truth, but brushing real problems under the rug doesn't really make them go away. Nice try, though!

2. Nakamoto argues that "The rail extension is needed now, and there is a strong regional business case to support it." Is the rail extension really "needed now?" Well, Nakomoto himself says that this has been a "40-year effort to bring rail to Tysons and Dulles." Is it any more "needed now" than it was in 1968, 1978, 1988, or 1998? I'm not sure about that. Also, is there a "strong regional business case to support" rail to Dulles? That's questionable; obviously, the landowners whose property values will skyrocket if rail goes in will be happy. But will Metro to Dulles really cause a boom in business in NOVA, more than the boom we've been seeing without rail to Dulles? I'm not convinced, but I'd love to see Nakomoto's "strong regional business case" rather than just take his word for it.

3. Nakomoto argues that people who fill the 400,000 jobs of the next 20 years "will need to get around in something other than a car." Well, that may be true, but the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project - the big boosters of the project -- only estimate ridership at 91,200 daily trips by 2025, a lot less than the 400,000 people who "will need to get around in something other than a car." That leaves about 300,000 more people still hopping in the car, not taking Metro. Doesn't sound like a solution to me.

4. Possibly the worst argument by Nakomoto is this: "Just as Metrorail moves workers into downtown Washington, we need that mass transit option in the Dulles corridor." Huh? Comparing a system which operates to shuttle commuters from high-density areas into a dense, central business core is the same as running a rail line up median strips of a far-less-densely-populated area to an airport located 25 miles west of the Washington, DC central business district? That's not "common sense" in my book!

5. This is just silly: "If this project can't move forward, the real losers will be people across the region..." No, actually, the correct statement here is this: "If this project moves forward as it is currently configured, the real losers will be the people across the region..." Unless, that is, they like Big Dig Bechtel building a poorly designed, poorly-thought-out project that, in 20 years, people will be kicking themselves about and asking, "what WERE we thinking?!?"

6. This is beyond silly: "Nearly 25 million passengers arrive at the airport every year, and that number is expected to climb to more than 50 million in the future. Will all of these travelers be forced into cabs? How big will the parking garages need to be?" Riiiight....there's no other option than building THIS particular project, right now, as it's currently figured, or 25 million more people per year will be forced to take cabs. There are no other options, of course, to the currently configured rail-to-Dulles project. It's either this or nothing. Uh huh. And this is what passes for "common sense" in the NOVA business community? Oh boy.

7. This is silly as well: "extending Metro through Tysons and to Dulles will be expensive, but doesn't common sense tell us that if we delay it will only become more so." Actually, doing this project right -- open it up to competitive bidding, for starters -- could dramatically REDUCE the cost. And building a tunnel in Tysons could have tremendous long-term economic benefits, both for the system itself (in terms of maintenance, repairs, etc.), but also for the "smart growth" development prospects of the NOVA region. Now THAT is "common sense."

8. There's a lot more, but I'll end with the following assertion by Mr. Nakamoto: "This project meets every element of the FTA mission statement." Sorry, it doesn't. Perhaps Mr. Nakomoto missed the FTA's rejection letter, which stated that the "current Project's technical, financial, and institutional risks and uncertainties are unprecedented for a candidate New Starts project." Not exactly a ringing endorsement, using "common sense" or any other form of reasoning.

Anyway, the bottom line is that a major Frank Wolf contributor is writing highly misleading op-eds in the Washington Post regarding the Metro to Dulles project. Personally, I find that interesting, if nothing else.

No Leadership from Frank Wolf, How about from Marc Fisher?

Since we're obviously getting no leadership from "leaders" like Frank Wolf on the Metro to Dulles debacle, how about leadership from Washington Post columnists? For instance, Marc Fisher totally gets it (my comments follow in italics):

So, if the feds really do stop the flow of dollars to the Dig to Dulles, what next? What can the state do?

* A pause of a year or two might be good for the project's future -- if the Democrats regain the presidency. Simpson is no enemy of mass transit: He just approved more than a billion bucks for New York City's Second Avenue subway project, an undertaking every bit as massive as Metro's Dulles extension. But a transit-friendly Democrat in the White House probably would be more aggressive about making sure Metro finds a path to a new rail line.

At this point, taking a year or two "pause" in order to get this crucial $5 billion infrastructure right for Virginia is definitely a good idea. Don't panic, don't rush this thing, and don't do it wrong in the haste to do anything!

* Advocates for bus rapid transit will jump to the fore, and there might even be a resurgence of interest in light rail. Both modes are vastly cheaper than heavy rail, and both have avid fans in the transportation biz.

Why NOT look at all alternatives to heavy rail? What's the goal here, anyway? Is it to get people to and from the airport most efficiently? At the lowest cost? With "smart growth" benefits along the way? Or is it to increase property values for major land owners in the corridor? Hopefully, it's not the latter option; if not, we should be considering Metro alongside other possibilities to move comparable numbers of people in comfort, convenience, and cost-effectiveness to and from Dulles Airport.

* Ditch Bechtel. The company that last week agreed to shell out $352 million to settle claims against its botched work on Boston's Big Dig tunnel project is also one of the two big companies that make up Dulles Transit Partners, which got the contract to design and build the rail line. The feds don't mention Bechtel in their letter, but they express deep concern about likely cost overruns and delays, an echo of the horrific experience in Massachusetts.

I've also addressed this issue ad nauseum. Bechtel's a disaster, but even worse is the whole idea of "no-bid" contracts. Open this thing up, and let's get the best deal for the taxpayers -- us, in other words!

* Bag the airports authority. The feds did get specific about their doubts that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which the state chose to run the Dulles rail construction process, has the experience needed to control the costs and schedule of such a complex project.

Dumping the airports authority (MWAA) is a no-brainer, given the total conflict of interest there (MWAA will directly benefit from construction of a rail line to Dulles Airport, but could care less how much taxpayers fork over for it, how it affects development in Tysons Corner, etc.). Also, Marc Fisher makes a good point - what on earth does an AIRPORT AUTHORITY know about running a RAILROAD?!? In sum, it's high time to get MWAA out of the picture here.

* Give Metro the dedicated funding stream it desperately needs. Metro has no steady source of money for capital projects and operational costs. "Metro -- unlike all other major systems -- remains uniquely dependent on annual operating subsidies from its member jurisdictions as well as revenue it generates internally from passenger fares, advertising and parking," the Brookings Institution's Robert Puentes writes.

I've addressed the issue of fixing Metro first BEFORE proceeding with any extensions to the system. As I wrote Saturday, "It almost seems to go without saying that "doing it right" should involve ensuring that the new "Silver Line" meshes with the existing Metro system." Now that we have a brief "cooling off" period, let's take the time to address this issue. Let's also get a Representative who will listen to their constituents and get the best value for our money. Needless to say, that would be Judy Feder, not the current Congressman from the 10th CD.

The Dulles Debacle Gets Worse

It's hard to believe, but the debacle over Metro to Dulles is actually getting worse. See here for more. The question is, aside from talk, what on earth are "leaders" like Frank Wolf DOING about this situation? Does he have severe laryngitis or something? How come we never hear a peep out of him on what is ONLY the most important infrastructure project in NOVA in decades?!?

Metro to Dulles in Deep Trouble. Where's Wolf?

It's Saturday after the announcement that Metro to Dulles is on life support (or possibly having passed into the great beyond). My question is simple: does anyone know where their Congressman is? Seriously, has anyone heard Frank Wolf say one word about the FTA's decision to reject his pet project, the one he worked on his seemingly endless, multi-decade career in Congress? Has anyone seen any sign of leadership on Wolf's part? Can anyone tell me why I keep hearing crickets chirping loudly in the background? Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp....

Tysons Corner Craziness

Read this editorial and see if your blood pressure rises or not. While you're reading, keep in mind that this if Frank Wolf's baby more than anyone's, and that Wolf has been a major obstacle to opening this up to competition and a tunnel in Tysons.

In an act of astonishing presumption, utility relocation has already begun on the Dulles Rail project...even though the project has not yet gotten final approval from the Federal Transit Administration.  The fact that the FTA is still scrutinizing the price tag of this misbegotten project doesn't seem to faze the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is now managing it.

[...]

There are also early warning signs that this too-expensive Metrorail project will do more harm than good in Northern Virginia, literally killing Virginia's golden goose.

Instead of early birds flocking to Tysons Corner to take advantage of Dulles Rail's many supposed benefits, businesses have actually begun bailing out. More corporate tenants have left Tysons than leased office space there this year. This unexpected exodus is most likely being driven by the anticipation of five years or more of major construction chaos and tolls of up to $5 per trip to pay for it...

Nice, huh?  Where do we begin?  How about with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) managing the Metro to Dulles project?  If that's putting the proverbial foxes in charge of the proverbial chicken coop, I don't know what is.  Why is this the case?  Because MWAA has the strongest economic self-interest of anyone to have this project move forward, at everyone else's expense of course. 

To be blunt, MWAA could give a rat's you-know-what whether Metro to Dulles Airport results in chaos in Tysons Corner, or whether it prevents Tysons from ever developing into a transit-oriented model "edge city."  MWAA certainly doesn't care about whether the taxpayer gets completely fleeced by this no-bid contract to "Big Dig" Bechtel. Finally, MWAA totally doesn't care whether or not Metro gets through Tysons using the idiotic, abysmal "aerial option."  As long as Metro gets to Dulles Airport, that's all that matters to MWAA.  That's understandable from MWAA's selfish perspective, but it makes absolutely no sense for anyone who lives or works in Northern Virginia. 

Where are our "leaders" on this issue?  Either AWOL, or caving in to the brain-dead "If we don't do it now, we'll lose all our money waaaaaaahwaaaaaaah" argument.  And yes, I'm including members of both parties here.

The simple, takeaway messages here: 1) stop proceeding with this project before it is even approved (duh!!!); 2) don't approve the project at all unless the whole thing is opened up to competitive bidding; 3) don't build this 100+ year rail line at all unless it's done right (do it right or don't do it at all); and 4) stop scaring and misleading people with lies about how Congress can't do whatever the heck it wants here, so we just HAVE to take the money now or lose it forever.  Is that too much to ask from people who supposedly represent OUR interests in Richmond, Washington DC, etc? People like Frank Wolf?

Why Won't Wolf Talk About the Tunnel?

Back in February, Frank Wolf avoided a rally for supporters of a Metro tunnel through Tysons. Jim Moran was there. Chap Petersen was there. Tim Kaine called in. Heck, even Tom Davis and Jeannemarie Devolites Davis were there. But, oddly, there was no sign of Frank Wolf, just an explanation from Jim Moran that Wolf wasn't there because he was "afraid that all his work [on Metro to Dulles] could come to naught." And all that work would be...what, exactly? According to the Washington Post, the entire project is on the verge of going down the tubes, as cost estimates have soared and as there have been "new hurdles, new objections, every step of the way."

Anyyway, you'd think that if Frank Wolf cared so much about Metro to Dulles, he would show up at a rally with 500 people who strongly support the project -- with a tunnel, of course. Yet, when I asked Tom Davis whether he thought Jim Webb was going to get involved in the issue, Davis snarled, "single-issue Senator." I wonder if Tom Davis would also snarl at Frank Wolf, who refuses to meet with his constituents, the vast majority of whom want a tunnel through Tysons.

Meanwhile, what I hear coming out of the Tysons Tunnel emergency summit meeting held on Capitol Hill August 2 is that Frank Wolf remains opposed to a tunnel, and fully prepared to move forward with the no-bid, single-source contract for "Big Dig" Bechtel to build an "aerial route" through Tysons. The question is, why? What reason could Frank Wolf have for opposing what the overwhelming majority of his constituents want? What reason could he have for opposing open, competitive bidding on this multi-billion-dollar project? What, in other words, does Frank Wolf know that we don't know? It would be great if we could ask him that question except for one problem: Wolf won't meet with anyone who disagrees with him. Convenient, eh?