Metro Garages Pulled From Dulles Rail Project; County To Finalize Federal Funding Application

Loudoun County

“To help ensure that there will be federal funding for the project, the Board of Supervisors last week voted to remove the cost of constructing the three parking garages associated with Loudoun’s stations on Metro’s Silver Line extension, and find another way to finance them.

During 2011 negotiations on the Memorandum of Agreement between local and federal entities on the Metrorail project, the cost of constructing the parking garages was taken out of the Phase 2 construction program in an effort to cut the project’s overall price tag. Loudoun and Fairfax counties agreed to seek alternative funding for the parking garages, including forming public-private partnerships with area landowners and developers, or paying for them through local capital project budgets. If the funding could not be found, the costs would revert to the overall Metro project.

In meetings with the U.S. Department of Transportation this summer to discuss the potential to secure additional funding through the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, to help offset the overall costs of the Metro construction project, the federal agency told Loudoun representatives the final decision to remove the garages would have to be made before the application could be submitted.”

~Writes Erika Jacobson Moore of Leesburg Today

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