January 29, 2008
Morning Roundup: Dulles Rail, Fee Repeal Fail
Good morning, Washington. Did you catch the State of the Union last night? If so, we hope your chosen SOTU drinking game didn't include the phrases "tax relief" or "our men and women in uniform." Even if it did, take solace in the fact that the endless breaks for applause were likely to produce a headache regardless of what you consumed during them.
Nickles, Cheh Clash Over D.C. AG: Linda Singer, former D.C. attorney general, resigned from her position after being ordered by Peter Nickles, Mayor Fenty's general counsel at the time, to stop work on a case against Bank of America related to the D.C. Tax Office scandal. We mentioned this yesterday; today the Post has more. The city council has entered the imbroglio, led by Mary Cheh. Cheh and other council members are concerned that the AG's office is insufficiently independent from the mayor. Nickles was grilled for two hours at a hearing yesterday, and legislation has been introduced setting a term limit for the attorney general position and clarifying its accountability to the mayor and council.
Kaine Gets Extension on Dulles Rail: Remember yesterday when we said nothing much related to the troubled Dulles Rail project was happening? Well, even less ended up happening that we expected. But it's still something (barely). To wit: Governor Kaine has been granted an extension by the Federal Transit Administration. As the AP reports (via WTOP), he'll now have until Friday to address the concerns that the agency is citing as justification for scuttling the feds' contribution to the Dulles Rail project. The previous deadline was yesterday.
Va. Driver Fee Repeal Hits Snag: Virginia legislators' efforts to do away with the state's new bad-driver fees may have to wait a bit, as the Post reports. The fines, which are paid over several years, went into effect on July 1 of last year. They haven't been a big hit with the public, and legislators pledged to repeal them as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, a 130 year-old court ruling is now making that difficult: the legislature apparently can't undo decisions of the court system, so drivers who have been convicted of eligible offenses and begun to pay the fees will have to finish doing so. The legislature is considering issuing a refund or taking other measures to compensate those affected.
In more productive Virginian legislative news, the commonwealth is making progress at reforming its mental health policies after being spurred to do so by the Virginia Tech tragedy.
Briefly Noted: Metro ridership increasing despite fare increase... Cargo ship runs aground in Chesapeake Bay... Happy-slapping suspects sought in Frederick... Fairfax police officer arrested for embezzlement... Howard U. men's soccer coach arrested for soliciting officer posing online as 13 year-old girl... Yesterday's Obama rally at AU drew 7,000 people...
This Day In DCist: One year ago tickets to see Sufjan Stevens at the Kennedy Center were in short supply and Abe Pollin was angling for the city to buy him a new scoreboard. Two years ago it was a Sunday, and we ran a pair of opinion pieces by former DCist editors — one from Martin on surveillance, and another from Mike on the city's historic buildings.
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user eskepe
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I'm not sure about the Dulles metro extension. On one hand, any new public transit is good. But in a sense aren't we rewarding the developers and people that made a conscious decision to locate a mini-city with completely inadequate infrastructure far outside of the central city or close-in suburb area? Couldn't they have made Tysons at some closer-in location with existing metro access?
linda singer is the formed attorney general? what formed her?
all kidding aside, ms. cheh isn't aiming high enough here. term limits for the attorney general is not what's needed. what's needed is accountability directly to the people of the district. the AG is an elected position in all but eight states. it should be an elected position in the district as well.
i believe that, if people clamoring for the AG position had to run for it, we might see an AG promising to actually crack down on crime, instead of a lot of the instances we have now where criminals are allowed to get off scot-free due to a lack of prosecution...
In the crazy world of metronomics, this increase in ridership will result in an increased budget shortfall, so I suppose we should all brace for another fare hike in the near future. Thank you sir, may I have another?
Oh, and didn't WMATA partly justify the recent fare increase on less-than-robust ridership growth?
Couldn't they have made Tysons at some closer-in location with existing metro access?
I doubt it, my best guess (encumbered by neither education nor experience) is that Tysons ended up where it did because of cheap land and the availability of a large contiguous area. Move closer to the city, large plots become scarce, the land becomes more expensive, and less attractive to developers.
"what's needed is accountability directly to the people of the district. the AG is an elected position in all but eight states. it should be an elected position in the district as well."
Carrying this logic out, the USAG should also be an elected position? Why or why not?
"Metro ridership increases despite fare increase." Well imagine that. An extra dollar a day didn't make hordes of people decide that Metro actually sucked, and all along they'd really rather have been sitting in a parking lot (er, sorry, interstate highway) burning gas at $3.25 a gallon for hours. Told you so.
I'm all for an elected AG position in DC. The problem is, as Nickles repeatedly pointed out, the DC Home Rule Act doesn't allow for such an elected position. The only way to change it is for Congress to amend the law. For some reason, neither Mendelson nor Cheh could understand that simple issue.
Two other points: 1. Linda Singer is a close friend of Cheh and Singer's husband was a major campaign fundraiser for Cheh. That sorta clouds her unbiased approach to Nickles' decision-making. One of Singer's top aides is now on Cheh's staff. Nickles alluded to Cheh's insider knowledge of AG personnel decisions.
2. I am not that sad about the Dulles Metro debacle. I would much rather see Metro focus on expansion of Metro tunnels so that we have more tubes crossing the Potomac, and more tubes going under the city so that maybe we could even have some express trains. I have absolutely no faith that Metro is able to handle current operations while also dealing with a major expansion.
Cranky,
I can understand the objections to the Dulles rail project in general, but I can't ignore the rather disturbing way this plan has been rejected. The FTA's objections to the project are fundamental issues that should have been raised a long time ago. That they were not (or were not addressed) until now speaks to a tremendous breakdown in the process for funding urban mass transit.
Given those implications, it's hard for me to see another Potomac tunnel and another crosstown trunk line meeting funding requirements, either, despite my agreement with you that they would be more worthwhile projects.
Combine that with the administration's anti-rail stances on any number of projects and issues, and it's hard for me to reconcile the notion that this project has truly been rejected on the merits, rather than rejected as a victim of political infighting and an unwillingness to spend government money on infrastructure.
The project is far from perfect, but the whole process of the pending rejection from the FTA is far more troubling than the project's faults.
"I would much rather see Metro focus on expansion of Metro tunnels so that we have more tubes crossing the Potomac, and more tubes going under the city so that maybe we could even have some express trains. I have absolutely no faith that Metro is able to handle current operations while also dealing with a major expansion."
I really think expansion of the existing system is a fantasy. Newer technologies do allow subways to be built without as much disturbance, but the tunnels built using these machines must be deeper than the existing Metro tunnels.
Just to give some context, 30 blocks of the new 2nd Ave subway is expected to cost around $4 billion. That's just over a mile. The blue/orange line in the District (the most common candidate for another tube) is about 5 miles.
Transit agencies are usually structured such that the operating and capital divisions are separate, for the exact reason that you state.
Correction: the expansion is supposed to be managed by the Airports Authority, so the "Metro can't do two things at once" argument is moot.
Rat:
You have a valid point. But that land was cheap for a reason - it was far from the city, and there was no transit or infrastructure.
So the developers got in cheap and made more $$ as a result. As did most of the residents and businesses. Those houses were cheaper out there for a reason.
So now we reward that cheapness by caving and building them a metro line, at the expense of metro upgrades and service for the rest of the metro area?
Like I said I'm of mixed opinions on this. If metro funds were unlimited I'd say we build wherever the people are. But the funds are quite limited, thanks to a backwardass view of transit issues at the federal level.
By comparison Rosslyn is now developing as it's own city, complete with metro service already there, and at the inflated real estate costs of today. Somehow developers managed to do that, at much higher land costs.
politburo,
well, there is a difference between the federal position and a state-level position. things can operate different at those two levels of the bureaucracy. the entire point about the charter having to be rejiggered by congress is just another brick in the wall WRT our need to get out of under their bootheel.
I just wanted to point out that Bender Arena has a maximum capacity of only 4,200 seated/6,000 for concerts. So how they squeezed an additional 1,000 people in that arena is surprising, and possibly dangerous.
That was the response I expected.. maybe I'm being naive, but I don't think there are major differences between the two levels, with the obvious exception of size. Read the USAG mission statement, and the statements of State AG's, and they're very similar (chief law enforcement officer, manage the department, give legal opinions, etc).
Never hurts to read the article..
"At 11:30 a.m., officials announced that the arena was filled to capacity, prompting moans from the hundreds still standing in the cold. University security guards instructed people to go across the street to a makeshift overflow room at the Mary Graydon Center... The overflow room got so crowded that officials directed more people down the quadrangle to the library"
Re: an elected AG cracking down on crime -- the reason I don't think this would be much of a campaign issue is that the DC AG has pretty limited criminal prosecution powers. All felonies and (I think) any other crimes subject to more than a year's imprisonment are up to the US Attorney's office to prosecute. And they are undermanned and underfunded, which is why lots of minor crimes are either not prosecuted or pled down to something meaningless. There really should be a major overhaul of the duties of the AG and the US Attorney in DC. But don't look for that to happen while a Republican is in the White House.
I doubt it, my best guess (encumbered by neither education nor experience) is that Tysons ended up where it did because of cheap land and the availability of a large contiguous area. Move closer to the city, large plots become scarce, the land becomes more expensive, and less attractive to developers.
Ding.
Picture it, 1965. With the beltway being completed, Dulles access road in the plans, existing roads already in place, and not to mention lots of open land, it shouldn't have taken much to see at the time that Tyson's would boom into what it has become. County and regional planners had every chance to extend Metro into Tysons and/or onward to Dulles, but balked and thought bus service to IAD would be enough.
To some extent, who could blame them? Dulles didn't see a massive rise in passenger numbers until 85-86', and by then the Orange line was all but complete. During the route planning stages of the mid to late 70's Dulles was moving about 3 million passengers (23 million now), so why spend billions of dollars for a routing to an airport that nobody uses when you can build it for cheap in a highway median? Metro had plans as late as 1978 to go to Dulles, but they were rejected.
I supposed politicos back then could not have known how much airline deregulation would spur growth at Dulles, nor really that the airlines would be deregulated. But I digress...
So now you've got Dulles busting at the seams in need for a real transit link to DC, and you've allowed a group of NIMBY's to grow powerful around Tyson's. It's the perfect storm, in a way.
It seems to me this is more righting some poor planning many years ago over rewarding developers who got in on the cheap. The headaches and the costs to do so just grew with every passing year.
Well, what about extending the green line to BWI? Has that alternative been considered? I hate flying out of Dulles anyway. It's so far away and for some reason it always takes forever to get through the security checkpoints.
Insurgency responds to Bush's SOTU address
http://tshirtinsurgency.com/blog
By the year 2050 (when they'll probably decide on the Grey/Gray Line) they'll need another extension to Jefferson County, WV.
All this nonsense surrounding a simple project that would benefit everyone is just sickening.
Petworthian,
They have considered it and is a nice dream, but since there already is mass transit link to BWI, I highly doubt we see any movement on it in the near future.
Well, what about extending the green line to BWI? Has that alternative been considered?
Maryland is working on a study right now on a Green Line extension to BWI.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040901162_2.html
However, with BWI already having MARC/Amtrak service, and Metrobus, I suspect there will be debate on how to enhance these services before building Metrorail out that far.
The initial Metro plans included a conceptual extension of the Green Line to Laurel. The most recent proposal was a full on extension to BWI, with a stop at Fort Meade, benefiting new jobs from the latest BRAC closures.
Honestly, the proposal seemed more driven by BWI boosters who feared that they would be shut out of the Washington air travel market if both IAD and DCA had Metro connections while they did not. That also speaks to the lack of any central organization for Metro planning. Considering what a remarkable planning achievement it was to built the whole system to begin with, the lack of any foresight in expansion is troubling.
I asked about the BWI study a while ago. Does Annapolis really want to invest millions in something that Dept of Transportation is going to nix? VA is out $150 mil in feasibility and environmental impact studies. Or are they hoping a friendlier Democratic administration will give it a go ahead?
Did he just leave a serious comment about something?
@Jeffrey - No, he just left off the part where he shrieks and throws feces at the monitor.
his wife must have given him some ritalin... ;)
In response to Petworthian, everybody has their airport preferences (mine is DCA at any cost) but for IAD being "far", it's only 2/10 of a mile farther from Petworth and BWI is. For other parts of DC, IAD is closer, and IAD goes places that BWI often doesn't.
I avoid BWI simply because of the clientele that Southwest attracts. IAD has its own quirks for sure. Of the 3 regional airports, DCA (in my experience) runs like a Swiss watch by comparison, and you don't have to deal with as many inexperienced (i.e. slow) passengers, and kids.
It seems to me this is more righting some poor planning many years ago over rewarding developers who got in on the cheap.
Exactly. Which goes to the heart of the BWI question, in a way. It would be great if there was a Green Line extension to BWI, and it would be pretty handy for people living and working in the Route 1 corridor. But let's not overlook the primary reason that Fairfax is doing everything but setting up dogtracks and casinos in Reston Town Center to fund this project: it's really about redeveloping Tysons (and the Reston-Dulles tech corridor.) Fairfax looks at Arlington, with its (relatively) tall buildings and lucrative density, and it wants to, over the next twenty-five years or so, turn Tysons into Rosslyn-Ballston on steroids. Hence the higher rates along the Toll Road. Hence the special commercial district tax. Hence the state lobbying. It's all to pay for what they think (rightly) is a very shrewd infrastructure investment.
It seems to me this is more righting some poor planning many years ago over rewarding developers who got in on the cheap.
Exactly. Which goes to the heart of the BWI question, in a way. It would be great if there was a Green Line extension to BWI, and it would be pretty handy for people living and working in the Route 1 corridor. But let's not overlook the primary reason that Fairfax is doing everything but setting up dogtracks and casinos in Reston Town Center to fund this project: it's really about redeveloping Tysons (and the Reston-Dulles tech corridor.) Fairfax looks at Arlington, with its (relatively) tall buildings and lucrative density, and it wants to, over the next twenty-five years or so, turn Tysons into Rosslyn-Ballston on steroids. Hence the higher rates along the Toll Road. Hence the special commercial district tax. Hence the state lobbying. It's all to pay for what they think (rightly) is a very shrewd infrastructure investment.
Sorry about the double post. I got a server error on the first one.
Sorry about the double post. I got a server error on the first one.
No worries mate, blame Gothamist LLC servers not yourself. Even though I still get those server errors on occasion, it has been a while since one of my comments has been disappeared.
As for your comments about Tysons, I think you're right on. Tysons isn't going anywhere, it makes much more sense to upgrade the infrastructure there to support higher density rather than just saying, "Fuck it, let's build another suburb even further from DC!"
it makes much more sense to upgrade the infrastructure there to support higher density rather than just saying, "Fuck it, let's build another suburb even further from DC!"
But if the original planners had that attitude, places like Herndon, Gaithersburg, and La Plata would never have existed!
Come to think of it, not a bad friggin idea.