Drivers on the Dulles Toll Road can expect to pay higher tolls every year, according to the airports authority that runs the toll road.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is polishing off a study that will show how high tolls can and need to be in the next few years, as the authority attempts to pay for the new Metrorail line to Washington Dulles International Airport with toll road revenue.
“I don’t envision in the next few years that there will be a year without a toll increase,” said Bob Brown, chairman of the finance committee for the MWAA board, who said the authority was reaching toll “heartburn” Wednesday at the airports authority meeting.
Brown predicted that tolls could climb to $16.75 per trip in a few decades, compared with $2 now, as a 2009 study also showed.
Tolls will rise 25 cents Jan. 1, to $2.25, and in 2012 the authority will set rate increases for coming years.
“A 25 cent increase, people swallow that pretty easily. But when increases keep coming, and some of them are a little bit bigger than 25 cents, people start complaining,” Brown said.
Members of the MWAA board renewed their call for even more assistance from Virginia and the federal government, beyond the millions of dollars already promised in a recent agreement.
“If Virginia could find a little more money for this, that would help with tolls, or if we could get a little more [federal loans]. There is no silver bullet,” Brown said.
MWAA board member Mame Reiley said the board felt confident it would get more federal money.
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“We are very hopeful that this is just the first of an installment [of federal loans],” she said.
The authority recently reached a deal with Virginia, the federal government and Fairfax and Loudoun counties to cut $1 billion in costs from the second phase of the rail line, now projected to cost $2.8 billion. But authority board members are still voicing concerns that they will need more funding to pay for the project, even issuing a request for companies to come forward with ideas on how the second phase of the rail line could be privately financed.
