Tunnel supporters sue to halt rail line
Nov 28, 2007 by William C. Flook, The Examiner (article)
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Tysonstunnel.org, a group that has sought for more than a year to persuade officials to run the planned Dulles rail line underneath Tysons Corner, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation on Tuesday aiming to halt the entire project until its plan is reconsidered.
The group was unexpectedly joined in the suit by Tysons firm Ratner Cos., which operates Hair Cuttery and Bubbles Salons. They are represented by Gary Baise, a Republican lawyer who ran an unsuccessful bid to unseat Fairfax County Chairman Gerry Connolly this year.
The suit signals that Tysonstunnel has largely abandoned any hope to pursuade Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to reverse course on the planned overhead track through Tysons.
Kaine officially abandoned the tunnel proposal in September 2006 after being warned by the Federal Transit Administration that the popular route would cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than the alternative and make the project ineligible for federal funding.
Tysonstunnel.org also is seeking to put the project out to competitive bidding, which it argues never occurred under the project’s public-private partnership. The lawsuit says the FTA cannot approve the rail project because it does not follow its guidelines for “full and open competition.”
“We don’t want it stopped, we want it corrected so we can move forward,” Tysonstunnel president Scott Monett said. “That’s what we have been saying from the beginning. ... What we’re asking them to do is follow their own rules that if a project is to receive federal funds that it be competitively bid.”
FTA spokesman Wes Irvin could not be reached for comment Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the project declined to comment.
The Dulles rail procurement process has been a point of contention since the inception of the project. Officials are building the rail through Virginia’s Public-Private Transportation Act, which allowed for closed-door negotiation on price and details, instead of the state’s standard procurement law.
A group made up by Bechtel Infrastructure and Washington Group International won a contract earlier this year to design and build the rail’s first 11.6-mile phase. That initial leg is projected to cost $2.5 billion, if $300 million in cuts are accepted by the FTA.
wflook@dcexaminer.com
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