Construction of the $7 billion Dulles Metro rail is as much as six months behind schedule despite public claims by officials in charge of the project that it is “on time, on budget.” The delay means the first phase of the Silver Line, which will eventually run to Washington Dulles International Airport, would open in June 2014 instead of late 2013, as promised. Officials declined to offer an estimate of the delay’s cost, but construction averages $40 million a month.
The rail project’s first phase had a nearly $300 million contingency fund to cover unexpected expenses like delays, but there is only $83 million left in the fund, officials said.
The contractor on the project, Dulles Transit Partners, first reported in July that it was 188 days behind schedule after unexpectedly finding an underground gas line in the project’s path and encountering difficulties installing communications systems, among other setbacks, according to a progress report obtained by The Washington Examiner.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages the project, at first denied there was any delay after questions about the construction schedule were raised by auditors in Fairfax County, which is paying for part of the project. Authority Chairman Charles Snelling said it was “beyond dispute” that the project is “on time, on budget.”
But Snelling later admitted that the authority had been warned by managers that the project was behind schedule. He said he hadn’t acknowledged the delay publicly because he believed the authority and contractor would be able to make up the lost time over the last two years of construction. “They’ve been managing around the problems,” Snelling said.
Project manager Pat Nowakowski said he would work with contractors to get the project done on time, despite differences about how to solve setbacks.
“They have their view of the world, and we have our view of the world,” he said. “But the project’s on schedule. Are there things that we need to resolve and work around? Absolutely. But we have an intent to work together.”
The delay in one of the nation’s largest public works projects could aggravate ongoing rancor between the airports authority, which is in control of the project, and county, state and federal officials who are financing it.
After fighting earlier over the location of a Metro station at Dulles and the ballooning cost of the overall project, Virginia officials are now seeking permission from Congress to expand their control over the airports authority.
Fairfax Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield, a member of the audit committee that first reported the delay, said the authority’s public denial of the delay reveals its “lack of transparency” and “bad governance” and could fuel county officials’ wariness of the board.
“I don’t feel they have either accountability or transparency with the partners on the rail project,” Herrity said. “If we had transparency and accountability, we’d know whether [the delay] was truly fixable or not. I mean, clearly, if they believe there’s going to be a delay, they need to let the partners know.”
Kytja Weir contributed to this report.
