A curious thing happened on the way to extending MetroRail to Dulles: The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA, ‘Metro’) unmitigated incompetence at running the existing system got noticed, and the Federal Transit Administration started asking why they should help fund an addition to a disintegrating system. Now, as a direct result of Metro’s spectacular inability to manage itself, a twenty-year overdue addition to our regional transportation system probably won’t happen. This, combined with the state government’s continuing redirection of Northern Virginia transportation money to Southern Virginia Rest Stop Renovations, has lined us up for a future of ever-worsening gridlock.
[Federal Transit Administration chief James S.] 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.”
