Metro Silver Line: No Money, No Tunnel, No Problem!

Now that Metro's awesome silver-plated, smoke-filled ride to Reston, Dulles and beyond is absolutely, positively going to happen (unless it doesn't), how are the Under, Not Over folks taking the recent turn of events?

Just swimmingly!

TysonsTunnel.org, the vocal grass-roots organization that has fought to place the proposed Metrorail stations at Tysons Corner underground, is out of money and has lost the support of its primary backer, the developer WestGroup.

Yet the organization will hold a rally May 19 to revive the debate and try to raise money, organizers said.

"TysonsTunnel and its tens of thousands of supporters will not throw in the towel," said the organization's founder, Scott Monett. "Northern Virginians who support TysonsTunnel want the commonwealth to fully explain why competitive bidding is unnecessary. We urge all TysonsTunnel supporters to come out May 19 to show that the fight still isn't over."

Remember how this group is supposedly a huge spontaneous grassroots effort by the tens of people who live in Tysons and consider themselves a part of its vibrant, Olive Garden-intensive lifestyle, as opposed to renting an apartment there for six months or so before fleeing from its soulless, life-destroying core? Well, the group's prime mover -- and it will shock you to learn it's a developer! -- threw in the towel a while back.

Without WestGroup, the future of TysonsTunnel.org is uncertain. The group has spent more than $3 million on marketing and advocacy -- most of it from WestGroup -- and collected more than 10,000 signatures in favor of a tunnel.

Which works out to $300 per signature. Hell, if some grassroots organizer developer wants to send us a check for $300, we'll go to the Bed Bath 'N' Beyond parking lot with an old spoon and start digging the frigging tunnel ourselves.

Metro Silver Line: All that clapping worked!

After basically being left for dead, much like a Metrorail car in an Orange Line tunnel during a track fire, Metro's awesome Silver Line extension through the wonders of Tysons Tegucigalpa, Reston, Dulles and the foreclosed particleboard housing beyond Loudoun County has made a stunning comeback.

Federal transportation officials are planning to approve the proposed 23-mile extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport in a letter to Congress today, the officials told local and state authorities yesterday.

Several officials with knowledge of the decision said the $5 billion project had finally met the Federal Transit Administration's standards for cost efficiency, construction and expected ridership. The approval would reverse an opinion from the FTA issued in January that said rail to Dulles did not meet the criteria.

"This is a critical step," one of the officials said. "Two months ago, everybody was writing the project's obituary. Now, thanks to everybody putting their swords away and making this thing work, the project is moving forward again."

Oh, yeah... right. Remember all that hilarious infighting after the initial decision was made, before Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters became BFFs?

Angry exchanges among local and federal officials included an accusation from the FTA that Virginia and the airports authority had ignored signs that the project had been in trouble for months. Project boosters accused the FTA of seeking to kill the Dulles rail project because of the Bush administration's preference for private investment in public infrastructure. Rumors circulated that the FTA sought to force Virginia to sell the Dulles Toll Road to private entities to finance the rail line, and the FTA continued to say that the project's cost was unacceptably high and expected ridership too low.

Officials with knowledge of the federal decision said Peters was behind the reversal despite objections from the FTA staff, which she oversees. Several sources said they might never know what caused federal regulators to ease up after coming down so hard on the project.

Maybe they just saw all the orange cones strewn across Tysons Tegucigalpa and decided what the hey.

Metro's Silver Line: Insult to Injury

Remember that time Metro was going to build an awesome monorail ride through the wonders of Tysons Tegucigalpa, allowing riders to squint through the smoke from the track fires to get a glimpse of such architectural wonders as the Bed Bath N Beyond and Olive Garden? But then developers grassroots organizers in that fair community decided to spontaneously demand that a tunnel be built, all the better to maintain the area's Paris-like, pedestrian-friendly boulevards? And then they sued, leaving a Tysons car dealer as the person who made the most sense as other Tysons developers jumped ship out of embarrassment? Yeah, that was awesome.

Well, now that awesome lawsuit, which would have stopped Metro construction until a tunnel could be constructed out of millions of tiny, gilded mosaics that depicted the ghostly face of Crystal Koons, has been withdrawn, but not because of some touching, sitcom-like change of heart that happens precisely 24 minutes into the show. Instead, tunnel backers think the whole project is dead as a doornail.

TysonsTunnel.org president Scott Monett says the lawsuit is no longer necessary now that the government appears to be on the verge of denying federal funding for the project.

Funny, the last time we checked in, things were going just hunky dory. Do they know something we don't?

On the bright side, that leaves us with just one nuisance lawsuit to worry about.

But what of the Macaroni Grill? Reston's Fake Downtown to continue paying onerous developer fees

As they face less and less demand for their awesome particleboard McMansions with 2-story foyers in soulless subdivisions with names like Pointe Hunte Preserve, Virginia homebuilders have been lobbying heavily in the statehouse to get something called "impact fees," which basically let them all but stop paying for the new schools, roads and flashing red traffic lights needed to serve said wonderful particleboard subdivisions. When that didn't go over so well, they offered up a compromise, making Reston's Fake Downtown and Tysons Tegucigalpa sacrifical lambs.

By exempting Tysons Corner and part of the Reston Town Center from the so-called impact fees, the development industry was trying to placate Fairfax County, which opposes the bill along with Loudoun and Prince William counties. Tysons and Reston, which are slated for urban-style redevelopment projects, would remain under the current system, which would allow county officials to negotiate contributions, called proffers, from developers.

But the change was not sufficient to win over Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D), who called it a last-minute attempt to garner support before the Tuesday deadline.

Swell. But what does all this mean to folks like you and me?

In addition, association officials said, it would stabilize the market and slow the double-digit percentage increases in housing values.

Right. Because we're all concerned about the double-digit increases in our property values right now. Thanks, Selfless Homebuilders!

Metro Silver Line: When all else fails, an online petition will do the trick

That'll show those pesky Feds.

So you're saying we still have a chance!

The headline in today's Washington Post pretty much says it all:

Dulles Rail Project All but Dead
"The FTA made it very clear today to the delegation that they are going to say no to this project," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to anger the transit agency.

Now that doesn't sound good. What happened to all that awesome paperwork Virginia officials were going to spend the weekend on?

Simpson said the FTA would not make a final decision on Dulles rail funding until Kaine and the congressional delegation have had a chance to respond to his concerns. The agency's initial promise to render a decision by the end of January is on hold, he said.

Kaine said Virginia officials and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is managing the project, would address the concerns of Simpson and Peters by Monday. But several project supporters, including state and congressional officials, said privately that it would not be possible to meet all of the federal government's demands.

Well, not with that attitude! Guess it's time to start finding folks to blame for the fact that the next time we want to take a monorail ride through a futuristic urban wonderland like Tysons Corner, we'll have to go to Disneyworld. So where should the pitchfork-wielding crowds go first?

Simpson emphasized his concerns about Metro, likening the Dulles expansion to putting a two-room addition onto a house that is falling down. "First, you have to fix the house," he said later at a news conference. "Metro's operational issues have become really serious over the last several months," he said. "I spent several hours with senior staff at Metro talking about their unfunded needs. They're holding up some of their subway stations with jacks. They're holding other subway stations up with two-by-fours and plywood. I could go on."

So could we. But of course, for some folks, it's time to party like it's... 1989!

One group not disappointed with yesterday's news is the coalition of community activists who have been pushing for a tunnel through the Tysons Corner segment of the project. Project planners instead decided on an elevated track, saying that a tunnel would cost too much and jeopardize federal funds. Tunnel supporters have been pushing for a timeout on the project to give a tunnel more study.

"This is an opportunity for us to make the best of this and see if we can't get the project corrected," said Scott Monett of TysonsTunnel.org. "We can still move Dulles rail forward -- with a tunnel."

Great idea! We'll go grab a spoon and start digging a hole near the Bed Bath N Beyond(tm).

In the meantime, the DC area joins the ranks of some awesome cities.

THE INTERNATIONAL airports in Chicago, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney are served by passenger rail lines. Those in Kampala, Ulan Bator and Tegucigalpa are not. The Bush administration has now, for all intents and purposes, decided that Washington, D.C., belongs forever in the second category and not in the first.

In honor of the selfless developers "community activists" who helped derail this project, we'll heretofore refer to Tysons as Tegucigalpa -- if only Tegucigalpa had an Olive Garden (tm).