THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010


Dulles Toll Road riders could face higher rates


metrorail from B1


mittee. “Everybody is hoping the num- bers will get better,” said Pat No- wakowski, executive director for the Dulles rail project. “We’re go- ing to look at ways to save money in the design of it, and we think we’ll get very competitive bids for this project. This is an estimate. The real project budget will come when we have firm building num- bers in hand.” Staff members for Virginia


Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) plan to meet with airports au- thority officials within the next week to review the estimate and “see what can be done to make sure this critical project becomes a reality,” said Stacey Johnson, McDonnell’s spokeswoman. Covering the increased costs of the second phase would likely re- quire additional increases to fares on the Dulles Toll Road. “The new estimates could defi- nitely affect what toll increases will be down the road,” said Tara Hamilton, an airports authority spokeswoman. In January, the toll road’s rates increased by 25 cents, to $1, at the main plaza and to 75 cents at ramps. It was the first in a series of rate increases that will double costs by 2012. Loudoun County Board of Su-


pervisors Chairman Scott K. York (I) said that he would push for the aboveground Dulles Metro stop and that bidding would be a “whole lot more competitive” on the second phase than on the first phase. But York said he was “very concerned about putting any ex- tra burden on the folks who travel on the toll road. They’re already


An accident’s aftermath


KLMNO


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B5


Council plans public survey on regional toll road project


By Ashley Halsey III


A fresh blueprint for the re- gion that calls for 1,650 miles of toll lanes and more mixed-use land development in the suburbs was unveiled to predictable reac- tion on Wednesday. Advocates for more and better


highways generally embraced the portion of the plan that rec- ommends them. Proponents of smarter land use and more mass transit gave thumbs up to pro- posals for more walkable com- munities and thumbs down to al- most $52 billion in construction to create toll roads. But how the grand plan will


TRACY A WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST


Cars head west along the Dulles Toll Road near Herndon. A projected increase of as much as $1.3 billion to the cost of extending Metrorail to Dulles Airport could be passed on to drivers on the toll road.


paying an arm and a leg.” The plan to extend Metro’s rail


service deep into Northern Vir- ginia was first developed in 2002 by state and airports officials. The airports authority, which in- dependently manages Reagan National and Dulles airports, took over the project in 2007 and began moving forward with plans for the first stretch of rail from Falls Church to Wiehle Av- enue in Reston.


About $900 million in federal funding came through in March 2009 for the first five stations, ex- tending service to the growing Tysons Corner corridor and Res-


ton. Construction on those sta- tions is about 20 percent com- plete and is scheduled to be fin- ished in 2013, officials said. The rail line is projected to carry as many as 60,000 riders a day, pro- viding relief for many of the traffic-jammed drivers who com- mute from the outer suburbs to Tysons and the District. The second phase of the proj- ect, covering 111⁄2


miles and six


stations, does not have federal funding. It is expected to be com- pleted by December 2016. Toll road funds are expected to cover nearly 53 percent of the entire project’s costs. Other funding


sources include a special land- owners’ tax district along the Dulles corridor in Fairfax County, a business licenses tax in Lou- doun County and a one-time, $275 million contribution from Virginia. The new cost estimate was pre- pared by a team of consultants performing the preliminary engi- neering for the Silver Line’s last six stations, a group headed by Parsons Brinkerhoff Inc. and AE- COM. Their work on the second phase of the Dulles Metro exten- sion is expected to be completed by March.


kravitzd@washpost.com


take shape depends less on the weight of those at either end of the teeter-totter than it does on commuters and residents whose weight sits at the balance point. “You want to take a look at the entire range of options and see where you get public support,” said Ron Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metro- politan Washington Council of Governments (COG), a body of elected and appointed officials from throughout the region. COG now will begin to survey the public and hold focus groups to see what average people in one of the nation’s most congested re- gions are ready to do about it. The arguments for toll lanes include that they will raise rev- enue that could be spent on mass transit, provide drivers with op- tions and reduce congestion by encouraging people to commute at off-peak hours. Proponents also hold out the option that they might be used to offset gas taxes. The challenge, however, is that there is little public support for converting existing free lanes into toll lanes. The $51.5 billion price tag covers the cost of build- ing miles of new lanes on virtu- ally all of the major highways in the region. The COG plan says


that 96 percent of that cost would be recovered in tolls. Another critical component of the proposal emphasizes devel- opment of “walkable” communi- ties around suburban hubs served by Metro, particularly in Prince George’s County. Ideally these hubs would offer jobs, housing and shopping, reducing the dependence of residents on cars and encouraging a reverse commute for District residents. The plan and the dilemma of urban planning, congestion re- lief and how to spend tax dollars was best summed up by Bob Chase of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance. “Bottom line, this is very com-


plicated,” he said. “It’s going to require a lot more discussion and analysis to determine how these pieces will improve mobility for most people at an affordable price.” Chase, whose group promotes


development through improve- ment to the highway systems, found things to like in the COG plan but warned that no plan is complete unless it includes crea- tion of new transit corridors and new Potomac River bridges out- side of the Capital Beltway. Stewart Schwartz, executive


director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, called the COG price tag for toll lanes, “jaw- dropping.” He said toll lanes would en-


courage more traffic, increase emissions and promote more suburban sprawl. “Rather than justify the exor- bitantly expensive toll lanes, the COG study demonstrates the benefits of walkable, bikeable, mixed-use and transit-oriented communities,” Schwartz said. “Proximity, not speed and dis- tance mobility, is the best means of addressing regional traffic and pollution.”


halseya@washpost.com COURTLAND MILLOY


Fenty’s loss is a gain for democracy


milloy from B1


propelled the D.C. Council chairman to victory have not burned out. Not quite. What happened Tuesday


involved more than just the unseating of a mayor with an abrasive style. It was a populist revolt against Fenty’s arrogant efforts to restructure government on behalf of a privileged few. The scheme was odious: re-create a more sophisticated version of the plantation-style, federally appointed three-member commission that ruled the city for more than a century until 1967. The Fenty troika eerily mirrored the old antebellum system of control, which featured a chairman for public works, which is what Fenty was, in essence; a chairman with expertise in legal maneuverings, Nickles; and a chairman for education and welfare issues, Rhee. It all makes for a kind of friendly fascism in which D.C. government serves the interest of business leaders and landed gentry. Remarkably, his approach became much ballyhooed: Fenty, his supporters raved, was making the trains run on time. That people were falling off the caboose and being railroaded out of town was just the price of progress. D.C. Council member Mary


JAMES A. PARCELL FOR THE WASHINGTON POST An accident involving a tractor-trailer and a car in a northbound lane of Route 301 in Brandywine caused a major traffic jam in both directions about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Prince George’s man shoots self after holding woman hostage


David E. Williams was upset over breakup of romantic relationship


by Matt Zapotosky A nearly nine-hour hostage sit-


uation in a Forestville area town- house came to a dramatic end Wednesday morning when a man holding his ex-girlfriend at gun- point turned the gun on himself, according to authorities and the woman. After an entire night of talking to the woman, police negotiators


and even reporters, the man went to an upstairs bathroom at the townhouse in the 8600 block of Ritchboro Road and shot himself in the head, police and the hos- tage said. At the time, about 7 a.m., the house was surrounded by Prince George’s County SWAT team officers. David E. Williams, 37, of For-


estville. was taken to a hospital, where he remained in critical condition Wednesday afternoon, police said. The hostage, an 18-year-old who spoke on the condition that she not be named because she is a crime witness and victim, said Williams made her watch as he


shot himself. She said that in the nine hours she was held captive, she and Williams talked about their romantic relationship — which she had tried to break off a few weeks ago and had consid- ered more casual than he did — and a prison sentence he had re- cently finished serving. Williams, she said, eventually tried to take his own life because he did not want to go back to prison. “He said that he didn’t want to


go back to jail, he’d rather kill himself,” the woman said. “I wasn’t scared of him because he was, like, so in love with me. . . . It was not like a hostage situation like you see on TV because he was


real nice to me.” Police said the man had an ex- tensive criminal history and re- cently spent 10 years in prison, but they would not say for what. Online court records show Wil- liams was convicted of bribery by intimidation, assault and battery and false imprisonment in the 1990s. The woman said the ordeal


started earlier in the day, when Williams chased her cousin — with whom he suspected she had a romantic relationship — at gun- point to her Forestville town- house. Family members decided not to call police. Sometime later, though, Williams returned to talk


with an uncle of the hostage. The two got into an altercation that ended when Williams allegedly pistol-whipped her uncle, the woman said. She said she re- turned about 10 p.m. to find out what had happened, and the man held her inside at gunpoint. Her uncle, she said, was able to escape the house before that and direct other relatives not to go inside. The woman said she is not an-


gry at the man.


“I tried to talk him out of it. I said, ‘Come on, you can just come down with me,’ ” she said. “He was a good person. . . . He basi- cally got sick of life.” zapotoskym@washpost.com


Cheh (D-Ward 3) actually used the term “lawless” to describe the Fenty regime. “He’s broken the government and built in obstacles to any future success,” she told me. It was going to be virtually impossible for Fenty to sustain what progress he’d made —unless Congress crowned him king of the city. Gray, as council chairman, called Rhee’s budgeting practices “opaque,” to put it mildly. Nickles, the council said, had a penchant for “stonewalling.” Out in the neighborhoods, Fenty’s long-standing moniker, “arrogant,” was joined by others, such as “dictator” and “Napoleon wannabe” who allowed Nickles to “walk all over us” and who let Rhee “spit in our faces.” So people went to the polls and politely delivered a message: Most residents actually believe in representative democracy, thank you very much, messy though it may be. You did it, D.C. And if it makes you want to holler, go right ahead.


E-mail: milloyc@washpost.com.


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