How much will it cost to operate and maintain Dulles Rail? Even the Metro Board doesn't have a clue. Halfway through construction of an extension that increases the size of its Metrorail system by 25 percent, Metro Board members still have no idea how much it will cost to run the thing. Fairfax County Supervisor and Metro Board alternate Jeff McKay insisted that the transit agency come up with "some numbers that are based in reality." District alternate Tom Bulger agreed, noting that it was "absolutely critical" to "have working numbers that have been scrubbed."
Last year Metro ran a $30 million operating-budget deficit. This year it was $66 million in the red, which had to be made up with higher subsidies from Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Labor costs will increase 3 percent this year, as the Metro Board decided to abandon its three-year battle with its union over retroactive wage increases, and will likely go up again next year after a new round of contract negotiations.
The latest figures available from a 2007 Metro report indicate that it will cost $45.6 million to pay employee salaries, electricity, maintenance and other expenses for Phase I. Assuming a similar amount for Phase II, annual operating costs could easily reach $100 million or more by the time the entire $6.8 billion, 23-mile Silver Line is complete. And outdated ridership projections don't take the recent economic downturn and Loudoun County downzoning into account, both of which will affect revenue.
Because of Metro's funding formula, Fairfax and Loudoun taxpayers will pay the lion's share of Silver Line operating costs -- no matter how much they turn out to be. But their future financial liability does not stop there. A proposed agreement brokered by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood shifts $188 million from the unelected and unaccountable Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board to Fairfax for two parking lots and the Route 28 Metro station; Loudoun will be responsible for another $130 million to pay for three parking lots crucial to attract suburban riders.
But there have been no economic impact statements or public hearings on these significant burdens, all of which were added after Fairfax and Loudoun approved Dulles Rail as their locally approved alternative in 2002. And since Virginia law gives both counties the legal authority to pay for Dulles Rail improvements from their general funds, local homeowners are now being viewed as the floundering project's unwitting underwriters.
