Metro has 16 board members-4 from VA, MA, DC and the feds. The board members vote on who will pay for this mostly by charging Virginia tolls and raising VA fees. Virginia has virtually no say in this except for their board members. These board members are in the minority, are Democrats, and was appointed by Tim Kaine coming from Fairfax and Arlington counties (two of the most liberal and Democratic areas in VA).
Bob McDonnell has been trying to cut costs by eliminating the Metro provision to hire strictly union contractors (gasp) and increasing VA board member representation with someone from the governor's office. No dice so far. When the board members wanted to spend ANOTHER $400M for an underground rail station (instead of above ground) at Dulles, there was such an outcry that the feds sided with Virginia and voted it down.
Tolls will go up from $3.40 round trip to $9.60 on the Greenway to pay for the Metro.
And in light of all the overspending, overtaxing, and obvious corruption; the Democrats would like to have ANOTHER Metro rail extension to southern Woodbridge.
BTW-I don’t know much about construction projects but there was talk early on about scrapping this. That is when the construction got fast and furious with partial bridges being built all over the place. Talk about bridges to nowhere, VA is it.
I’m not an expert and there may be economy of scale for doing the project like this. But we’re talking large sections undone. I would have thought that one would do one section first and then move on. With incomplete sections of bridges all over the place it almost appears that someone deliberately is trying to see this project continues.
They need to go ASAP because METRO is no longer well-known for its stellar safety. Yes, right now it's safer than driving on the Capital Beltway, but due to poor maintenance of the METRO, now one never knows what may happen when a person gets in a train.
The Greenway is privately owned by an Australian hedge fund, so I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly how tolls on the Greenway are being used to fund the Metro extension. That said, they are nasty now - almost $12 round-trip during "peak" hours (rush hour), and the Dulles Toll Road, which is publicly owned, is a totally different story. Those tolls are being used to fund the Metro extension.
That article says nothing about the Metro extension. However, tolls on the DULLES TOLL ROAD are going up to pay for it.