In his budget delivered to Congress, President Bush has given an important endorsement of WMATA’s plan to build an extention through Tyson’s Corner. The agency that oversees such matters has given the rail line from the West Falls Church station to Wiehle Avenue in Fairfax County a “recommended” rating. Considering ridership projections and cost-effectiveness, as the Post reports, the rating makes the project “eligible for 50 percent federal funding.”
But drivers of the Dulles Toll Road will get to sound off on a plan to hike tolls, in part to pay for the metrorail extension, the AP, via WJLA, reports.
And WMATA has announced its plan to contruct escalator canopies at more stations throughout the system. According to the transit agency, the stations are: White Flint, Stadium Armory, Capitol Heights, Benning Road, Dupont Circle (South), Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan, Cleveland Park, Van Ness-UDC, Friendship Heights, Waterfront, Shaw-Howard U, U Street/African Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo, Grosvenor-Strathmore, College Park (West), Smithsonian (Mall), Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Navy Yard (East).
In other transportation news, President Bush’s budget is placing Amtrak’s federal subsidies in jeopardy, but that is a threat the national passenger rail carrier has faced in the past.
