Video: "Protestors crash Frank Wolf press conference"

Wolf Failed Us (0.00 / 0)

Rail-to-Dulles remains an underfunded disaster. The biggest problem is Frank Wolf's failure to get proper federal funding. Of the projected $6.25 billion cost, only 14% comes from the Federal government. The nationwide average for Federal funding of mass-transit rail is 38%. Rail projects in Dallas and Seattle, with no federal impacts, got 42-50% federal funding. Rail-to-Dulles should have received at least that much if not more. After all, connecting our Nation's capital by rail to its international airport is in the federal interest. But Wolf only got 14% for us! If he had done his job and just obtained the nationwide average, we would have an additional $1.5 billion dollars for Rail-to-Dulles. That would pay for parking garages, an underground station at Dulles, a tunnel under Tysons, and cuts to tolls on 267. None of that will happen because Frank Wolf let us down on Rail-to-Dulles. Northern Virginia will have to make up the shortfall. We will be living with Wolf's failure for decades.

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by: Jeff Barnett @ Tue Apr 19, 2011 at 19:09:53 PM UTC

Yes, and it's a failure in many other ways as well (0.00 / 0)

What's so frustrating is that we wrote about this extensively at RK during the period when this was all being debated. We also worked closely with TysonsTunnel.org to try and get this project built the right way, not the egregiously wrong way. Unfortunately, we lost, and now our region's going to be suffering for it for decades to come. Even more galling is who we lost to: the power of wealthy/powerful Bechtel, the foolish/short-sighted politicians who railroaded (pun intended) this thing through, everyone who was bought and paid for by Bechtel, etc. I just hope that everyone who opposed TysonsTunnel.org and the others who worked hard to see this project done right are satisfied with themselves now!

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by: lowkell @ Tue Apr 19, 2011 at 19:40:02 PM UTC

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