Observer Online | Viewpoints

Posted June 8, 2007

A Tunnel It Should Never Be

Last week the Federal Transit Administration issued a response to the fledgling effort to change the design of the Dulles rail project from an above-ground system through Tysons Corner to a tunnel.

For those unfamiliar with the drama, a group of developers and citizens opposed to the above-ground option formed Tysons Tunnel Inc. and has so far spent millions in a campaign to try to get anyone—the federal government, Virginia, or Fairfax County—to endorse, at the 11th hour, the idea of boring a tunnel through Tysons.

The Tysons Tunnel campaign has an air of unfairness to it. Officials and citizens have spent thousands of hours over the past two decades to move the project forward. This included years of public hearings and design reviews which included an agreement on a "locally preferred alternative" featuring an above-ground system through Tysons to control costs.

But as state and local officials moved the project forward to receive much-needed federal funding of almost $1 billion, suddenly the tunnel people decided now would be a good time to rethink the whole plan.

The report issued last week clearly stated, from the standpoints of science, public policy, project management and safety, that the hastily drawn plans for a tunnel through Tysons are filled with dangerous oversight. Not nearly enough study of the ground conditions have been done, the study said, to ensure that the tunnel as it is proposed wouldn't cause sinkholes at the surface, or endanger the workers on the project, or cost vastly more than what has been estimated.

The estimates by the tunnel supporters are far off, according to the federal government, which estimates that boring a tunnel could cost as much as 50 percent more than an above-ground project and could push the completion date off for more than three years. Indeed, the study concluded, "The degree of difficulty of successfully completing the project as proposed by TTI is vastly understated."

Transportation leaders have worked diligently to move this project forward, and the delaying tactics put forth by the late-comers does nothing but jeopardize the future of transit in the Dulles Corridor. With this latest report, let us hope the tunnel supporters put the issue to rest, for everybody's sake.