A Fairfax County leader has joined a citizens group in questioning whether the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority relied on faulty data when it predicted how high tolls would rise on the Dulles Toll Road and whether the $8 round trip cost projected earlier may be too low.
Officials are questioning the estimates just as new projections done by the same company are about to be released. Local leaders worry that tolls on the road may soar because the toll road revenue will help finance the $2.8 billion second phase of the Dulles Metro rail project. The earlier report that officials considered flawed may have underestimated how much tolls would have to increase if Fairfax and Loudoun County agree to help finance the Metro project.
“We’re aware that the numbers to produce the 2009 projections were not as accurate as they should have been, and we’re sure going to making sure that’s not the case [in the 2012 projections],” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova said.
Wilbur Smith and Associates studied the toll road for the airports authority in 2009 and predicted that tolls would rise to $8 by 2018. But those 2009 predictions relied on faulty data, according to a Reston Citizens Association study released earlier this year — and a Fairfax County auditor has now agreed with the citizen study.
Wilbur Smith used population and employment data that significantly varied from data provided by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis to come up with its toll estimates, the Reston study and a Fairfax auditor agreed.
But Bulova said she didn’t agree with the citizens group that local governments needed to step back and reexamine Wilbur Smith before proceeding with final decision on the second phase of Dulles Rail, set for this spring.
“Wilbur Smith has the background and has had the experience with working with this project for a great many years. Starting over with someone else would be costly, and I’m not sure that’s something we need to do,” she said.
Bulova said she was committed to making rail to Dulles a reality, despite her concern over the toll projection data.
“I think there are very few people in Fairfax County who when they supported rail to Dulles thought they were supporting rail to Reston. We’re going to make it work and we’re going to be watching very closely to make sure we get correct numbers from Wilbur Smith,” she said.
