Though
Silver Line rail service from Washington, D.C. to Dulles Airport was nearly put
to death in the course of political posturing over a project labor agreement in
right-to-work Virginia, through which the trains must pass, the last hurdle to
construction of the second phase of the project was cleared Tuesday, July 3,
when the all Republican Loudoun County Board voted 5-4 to approve participation
in the project. When Virginia’s Republican Governor Robert F. McDonnell finally
withdrew his threat to take back $150 million in state funds for the project
over the project labor agreement he viewed as overly pro-union, in recent days
he urged members of the Loudoun County Board not to stand in the way of
construction of the rail line.
Loudoun
County’s commitment of $270 million toward construction of the line will save
air travelers a $60 taxi ride into D.C., as well as making airport jobs
available to workers without cars to make the 46 mile daily round trip to the
airfield. Loudoun County will set up a special tax district to fund its share
of Silver Line costs, imposing the burden exclusively on owners of commercial
developments and vacant land immediately surrounding the to be constructed
commuter stations along its stretch of the Silver Line route. Almost all of the
residential property in the county will be excluded from the new taxes.
Politicians
from Virginia’s state government and from counties neighboring Loudoun are
praising the formerly rural Loudoun for deciding to go suburban and participate
in the development, rather than blocking commuter access to Dulles for citizens
of the remainder of northern Virginia in order to preserve Loudoun’s rural
atmosphere. Opponents of the Silver Line project still question whether commuter
rail to Dulles will contribute anything to reduced traffic congestion in the
region, and the wisdom of suburban Virginia entering into partnership with the
Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit
Authority, local governments dominated by Democrats. Republican Board members
voting in favor of participation, on the other hand, describe their action as “the
vote of a generation, maybe of the century.”
