VA House speaker Howell denounces Dulles Rail as wasteful, useless

According to Toll Road News, Virginia House speaker William Howell says the Dulles Rail project proposed for the median of the Dulles Toll Road and Dulles Greenway is an "incredible waste of money" and may actually worsen traffic conditions in northern Virginia by encouraging higher density development. Future ownership of the Dulles Toll Road is at stake in the controversy over the $5 billion rail project.


The Web site - which reports on toll roads, turnpikes, toll bridges, toll tunnels and road pricing - also reports that State senator Ken Cuccinelli (Northern VA) calls the rail project a "boondoggle" and "never a transportation project from the very beginning."


Toll Road News further goes on to say that "analysis has repeatedly shown that better transit service at much lower cost can be provided in the Dulles Corridor by express bus, vans and other rubber tired vehicles in special roadway lanes. Such vehicles can provide door to door service, higher frequency and can run express, whereas the train will require elaborate feeder services at each end and will have some 20 stops between Dulles Airport and downtown D.C., causing travel times to be much longer than in managed lanes. The first stage of the rail project for which the federal government is contemplating the $900m grant does not even reach to the airport. It ends halfway between Tysons Corner and Sterling."