Friday, February 17, 2012
More Maryland residents were hired to work on the project because the state has more unionized labor.
The Rail to Dulles project is coming together in Virginia and is being paid for mostly by Virginians, but many of the workers hired to build the project are Maryland residents. According to The Examiner, in a report from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority about 42 percent of construction workers who are working on the project are from Virginia, and about half are Maryland residents. The reason for hiring more Maryland workers is because the state has more labor unions, which are preferred by MWAA. The first phase of the Dulles Metrorail Project used a project labor agreement, which required the use of unionized workers. The project manager was going to require the same for phase two of the project until lawmakers in Virginia …
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The Herndon Town Council decided to defer a decision on the Herndon Metro Station Area Plan to its Feb. 28 public hearing.
After listening to public testimony, the Herndon Town Council voted to defer the Herndon Metro Station Area Plan for two weeks at its public hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 14. Consultants from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., discussed some of the biggest changes in the plan over recent weeks. After errors were found in the initial plan in November, VHB went back and made corrections and changes to it. The newest iteration of the plan was released in mid-December. The study area for the plan, which began with 190 acres of land surrounding the future Metro station, went from 110 acres to 38 acres. Those 38 acres are now being referred to as the Herndon Transit-Oriented Core, and will have a floor area ratio ranging from 3.8 to 4.3. Floor area ratio…
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Open house in Reston a time for public to check in on Toll Road, Metrorail, improvements.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority officials decamped to Reston on Tuesday evening for an open house where citizens could ask questions such as "how much parking is going to be at the Wiehle Metro stop?" and "tolls are going up how much?" There wasn't much new news offered by MWAA at the event at South Lakes High School, but it was good one-stop shopping for transportation information. Dulles rail project executive director Pat Nowakowski said he was relieved that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors officially signed off on the project's Phase 2 $2.8 billion funding agreement earlier Tuesday. MWAA and Loudoun County, along with state and federal officials, had already approved the deal. "It is one more signal it is time to move…
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Authorization from Fairfax County final step in agreement to move forward with above-ground station, lower price tag for Metro.
- GOVERNMENT
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved changes on Tuesday to the funding agreement for the second phase of the Dulles Rail project. The plan will save as much as an estimated $757 million in fees for Dulles Toll Road users, county officials said. The board’s authorization was the final step needed to adopt the changes. The project’s other partners—the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), Loudoun County, Commonwealth of Virginia and U.S. Department of Transportation— agreed to the deal last month. “This strategy brings the cost of Phase 2 back down close to the original estimate and goes a long way to ensure this critical transportation project is completed,” Chairman Sharon Bulova said in a statement. “Dulles Rail …
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Cash ensures Phase 2 will happen.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board of Directors on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution that will ensure the continuation of the Dulles Rail extension to Loudoun County. The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is a multiparty agreement that outlines the fiscal responsibilities of federal, state and local entities in the estimated $2.8 billion Phase 2 of the rail project. The Board also approved an agreement with the Commonwealth of Virginia addressing the use of a project labor agreement in Phase 2. The Washington Post reported last week that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) also agreed to bring $150 million to the table to help finance the project. “This momentous vote guarantees that the most important transportation…
Thursday, July 7, 2011
LaHood's July 3 white paper on reducing Dulles Metrorail Phase 2 costs includes aboveground station at airport.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wants Dulles Metrorail stakeholders to cut $1.058 billion from the Phase 2 price tag, and he says that each of the funding partners must make financial sacrifices to keep the project on schedule and affordable. The July 3 white paper presents LaHood's proposal that was crafted after five closed-door meetings since June 1 with the funding partners, including Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board, state elected leaders and officials in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. The second phase extends rail from Reston to Dulles International Airport and eastern Loudoun County. LaHood entered the fray as a mediator on June 1 because tensions among the stakeholders reached an all-time high with MWAA …
Friday, July 1, 2011
Above-ground station, local governments may shrink price tag.
There were no concrete decisions in Thursday's meetings in the ongoing discussion on how to cut costs for Metrorail's Phase II of rail to Dulles. However, the idea has been proposed to transfer some of the financial burden back to the local governments. The latest estimate for Phase II of the Silver Line, which will run from Reston to Dulles International Airport and into Loudoun County, is $3.5 billion. More than $300 million of those costs would be for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's (MWAA) proposed underground station at the airport, which brings the and total cost estimate in about $1 billion more than expected. At this week's meeting between U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Loudoun and Fairfax County …
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Thirty-day deadline to cut costs looming, but no decision on the horizon.
Key players in the Rail to Dulles saga are scheduled to meet again Thursday with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood in an effort to reduce mounting costs. Officials from Loudoun and Fairfax counties and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) started meeting in earnest June 1, and LaHood told them they had 30 days to come up with cost-cutting solutions to the estimated $3.5 billion price tag for Phase II. Last week, business leaders from Loudoun and Fairfax voiced their dissatisfaction with the process in a press conference across the street from Reston's Wiehle Avenue station, which will be the end of the line of Phase 1 when it opens in late 2013. Loudoun County Chairman Scott York said the 30-day deadline will …
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Investigation will look at board's transparency in Rail-to-Dulles process.
Correction: The Inspector General announced on Nov. 19, 2009, an audit that will evaluate the effectiveness of FTA’s oversight of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project and assess potential safety concerns. An earlier version of this article had incorrect information about the objective's of this audit. U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovell announced Tuesday that his office will determine if Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority policies and procedures comply with the law and whether the board of directors has been transparent with and accountable for its actions with the controversial Dulles Corridor Metrorail project. U.S. Representatives Frank Wolf (R-Virginia 10th) and Tom Latham (R-Iowa 4th) asked for…
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Dennis Martire says he did not violate code.
When Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board member Dennis Martire has on his work hat, he is aggressively advocating for project labor agreements that often result in contractors hiring employees who are represented by unions. As vice president of Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), Martire has posted numerous articles on his employer’s website praising anyone who uses project labor agreements, such as the Community College of Allegheny County for its K.Leroy Irvis Science Center project. But some believe Martire may have crossed an ethical line on April 6 when MWAA passed a resolution that supports the pro-union labor agreement for the second phase of extending Metrorail to Dulles International …
Rob Jones
10:55 am on Sunday, March 25, 2012
This is hard to prove. Given the costs of the project, the difference in labor costs may be in the millions, but the taxpayers are still being socked with a multi-BILLION dollar bill. So Virginia wants to give nearly a half-billion dollars to provide some miniscule discount to the toll road drivers and this does not even count towards construction. Maybe the fact that we do not have such type of … more ›