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Public Hearings Lack Meaningful Input According to Rail Opponents |
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Written by Leslie Perales - Observer Staff Writer
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Friday, 28 August 2009 |
| While many attended the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's public hearing earlier this week to ask questions, there was one attendee who quietly expressed his dissent in the parking lot. |
| Porky the Dulles Rail Pig, the mascot of the Dulles Corridor Users Group, was parked outside Monday night. The statue hauled in on a trailer was plastered with signs reading "Thanks for all the tolls, suckers," and "Honk if you want an end to tolls." Chris Walker, founder of DCUG, said the event was not a true public hearing "because they didn't take any testimony." |
| The meeting was held in an open-house format where people made their way around the room gathering information and asking questions of MWAA staff. A table sat in the center of the room for residents to fill out public hearing comment forms. Walker said the meeting is not a good way for MWAA to get meaningful input. |
| "They're a big bureaucracy," Walker said. "They're not interested in any new ideas. The point of having the pig is if we didn't have Dulles Rail the tolls could come off." He said Porky lets people know that without the rail the tolls would be nonexistent. He said there could possibly be a $200 million refund if the tolls were abolished. |
| Shortly before MWAA's Monday hearing Walker and DCUG held a press conference in Reston to discuss why rail and tolls are not good for the Northern Virginia region. He said financial projections for the Dulles Toll Road keep worsening and the cost of carrying the bonds on the project will average more than $1 million each day. "They'll have to be paid for by tolls and it's going to ruin the corridor," he said. |
| Earlier this month Walker filed a federal suit in Washington, D.C., that asks that the toll booths be torn down, the Toll Road be turned into a free public highway and a refund of $200 million in past overcharges be issued. |
| The suit names as defendants the U.S. Department of Transportation, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff, two administrators from the Federal Highway Administration, Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer and MWAA President and CEO James Bennett. |
| "On March 10, 2009, the federal government and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority entered into a full funding grant agreement to jumpstart the moribund Dulles Rail project, which had been kicking around for 45 years," the suit states. "Time and technology has passed it by, and superior but unexamined alternatives are available." |
| The suit requests the courts to refuse to allow MWAA to raise taxes through tolls without the approval of either the General Assembly or voters at a local referendum. It also questions the legality of spending toll money outside of the Dulles Access Road right-of-way since a portion of the money will be spent in Tysons Corner. |
"The rail system we have now everybody likes, but nobody wants to pay for it," Walker said. He said the current Metro system has a $10 billion deficit for maintenance and the focus should be on its maintenance. "Sure, it's nice to have as long as somebody else pays for it," he said. "I'd like to have a Rolls Royce as long as somebody else was paying for it." Those named in the lawsuit have 60 days to respond.
http://www.observernews.com/story08/news08/082809_tollsuit.html |
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