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To hear some Loudoun County officials tell it, the second phase of Metro’s Silver Line out to Dulles and beyond would be too expensive to build. To hear others tell it, though, to not build it would see places like Loudoun County sacrifice billions of dollars in potential economic development opportunities.

The Washington Business Journal reports that a new study has quantified how much Loudoun County could possibly give up if it opts out of the Silver Line’s second phase—and it’s a lot. All told, without the Silver Line, the county would miss out on $11.2 billion in economic activity by 2030 and over $25 billion a decade later:

With Metro, Fuller writes, Loudoun will be endowed with a competitive advantage over its neighbors in an ability to “develop a strong export-based business platform for its future growth.” An export-based economy would accelerate the county’s gross product from $21.2 billion in 2010 to $230.4 billion by 2040. Its economic growth would exceed all other area jurisdictions, and its share of the regional economy would grow from 5 percent in 2010 to 12.5 percent in 2040.

Without transit, Fuller concludes, Loudoun’s economy “will grow more slowly, driven by gains in lower value-added employment and imported income earned by residents commuting to jobs located outside the county.”

Loudoun County legislators have been skittish about the estimated $3 billion the 11.4-mile-long second phase will cost, despite the fact that they’ll only have to kick in about five percent of that cost. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been trying to negotiate a settlement between Virginia, Loudoun County and the area’s airport authority over the project’s fate; a decision has to be made by July 4 so that construction can begin for a 2018 opening.