Wiehle Avenue station in Reston, the terminus of Phase 1.

“The ideologues in the administration have given up”. So says Congressman Jim Moran, in response to the FTA’s recent approval of the Silver Line after years of bureaucratic attempts to scuttle the project. It seems the Bush administration fought the project because a) they don’t like transit, and b) they wanted to force VA to sell the Dulles toll road to private interests, to become a tolling pilot project. But with the lame-duck administration in retreat and pro-transit policies likely to take hold under the new president, the fight has gone out of the bad guys.

So what next?

The FTA approval received by the Silver Line is a bureaucratic step. For the next month it will be reviewed by FTA boss Mary Peters and the federal Office of Management and Budget. That review should be complete just before the new administration takes over. After that, the federal approval / funding grant will be forwarded to Congress for the final once-and-for-all for-really-this-time go.

Assuming all goes according to plan, construction starts in March and revenue service to Tysons Corner begins in 2013.