Kiser: Metro would cost Prince William

For years people have been talking about bringing Metro to Woodbridge.

Why not? It’s just a simple extension of the Blue line from Springfield.

As a child growing up in Woodbridge I remember when my mother would take us for day trips on the rail system. We usually ended up at the National Zoo.

Before we boarded the train, I remember watching the flashing lights on the platform as the Yellow line train was pulling into the Huntington station in Alexandria. That was in the eighties, long before the Van Dorn or Franconia-Springfield stations were built.

Prince William County didn’t then and still doesn’t fall under Metro’s established transit zone, which includes Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

That means Prince William County does not pay to subsidize Metro as a member jurisdiction of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority.

Prince William and North Stafford residents do have some of their federal tax dollars fund the system through a “formula funding” process, said Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission board chairman Michael C. May.

“In allocating these funds to WMATA, the federal government looks at the population of ‘Northern Virginia’ and includes areas that are not part of WMATA. Specifically, the populations of Prince William, Manassas, Manassas Park and North Stafford and the lane miles traveled by the residents therein ensure that WMATA receives more federal funding than if these areas were not included,” stated May in a recent e-mail.

Residents in the named localities are expected to add $2 million a year to what the system already receives from other funding sources.

But Prince William does provide the largest portion of local funding for the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission’s $25.9 million operating budget.

But PRTC’s bus services are not Metro, which before this summer was widely considered the region’s cornerstone mode of transportation.

If you are going downtown, take Metro, officials always say. I receive many reader-proposed solutions to our region’s traffic woes that end with “Why don’t they just build a huge Metro line to Fredericksburg?”

That reason has been and always will be cost. Metro is expensive and many politicians, especially in Richmond, balk at the idea of spending that money on a heavy rail line.

And many of the ones who cringe do not have sit in Interstate 95 traffic, which has grown to become some of the worst in the nation. But the federal government has realized the importance of extending the rail system to Dulles Airport.

The project only took about 40 years to get started, said a spokesman for Rep. Gerald E. “Gerry” Connolly, D-11th. The first of two phases of the Metro rail extension is expected to cost about $2.6 billion to build, according to the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority.

The agency is responsible for construction of the rail line, and when finished, will then turn it over to Metro. The price to maintain the line will follow, and then it will be Loudoun County’s turn to pay a portion of the cost.

If a line is extended into Prince William, taxpayers here would also have to pay. Those dollars would surely be in addition to those that go to fund PRTC buses and Virginia Railway Express trains.

This could mean higher taxes, higher property values, and it could leave many Prince William residents looking for a cheaper place to live in jurisdictions farther away from Washington.

Transportation officials don’t appear to be worried that a new mode of transit on the block could take away a portion of their funding. Many tout a multi-modal view of transportation, where the road is just as important as the rails, as it is with buses and carpooling.

Connolly held a press conference last week in Woodbridge to talk about his new legislation, which aims to study the prospect of bringing Metro rail to Fort Belvoir, and ultimately Potomac Mills.

While this study will undoubtedly spark debate, a significant portion of that discussion should focus on whether or not VRE is living up to its potential and if it is adequately funded. We should also remember that just last year, when gas prices rose over $4 a gallon, PRTC buses were filled to the gills with commuters.

Also, we should not be ashamed to show the rest of the Washington area, and the nation, that the Slug system — which was created by Northern Virginians for Northern Virginians — still works.
Metro is great, spurs jobs and is an attractive and easy way to get to work and play. But with it comes a high price tag.

Uriah A. Kiser covers transportation for News & Messenger and writes a daily blog, Lane Ranger Live. A portion of this story first appeared last week on Lane Ranger Live at insidenova.com.