Which will Virginians choose?

Northern Virginians who last week were dancing in the streets over the prospect of a transportation funding deal from Richmond may be left scratching their heads at yet another failure, now that more specifics of the proposed bill are being made available. Most distressing is the piece of fine print that could derail the Dulles Metro extension by forbidding the sale of the toll road to the Washington Airports Authority, which planned to increase tolls in order to pay for the Metro line. Without that sale, the commonwealth cannot afford to build the western half of the extension, which runs from Wiehle Avenue west along the toll road median to the airport and Loudoun County.

While BeyondDC has never been a huge fan of that western segment (we’re generally against locating Metro in highway medians since it limits potential for TOD), we’re aghast that Virginia’s GOP would directly threaten the most important transportation project in Northern Virginia in the very bill they are touting as a transportation solution.

Meanwhile, Virginians are now facing a very real test over cars and transit: Approve the GOP’s plan and add hundreds of millions of dollars to the road construction budget while guaranteeing low tolls on the highway at the expense of a major transit project, or go through another round of negotiations, with the effect that road construction money is delayed and highway tolls raised, but the Metro line gets built.

Are Virginians willing to sacrifice for Metro? We’ll soon find out.

Update: 1/23/06: Virginia Republicans have agreed to remove the provision in question and allow the sale of the toll road to the Airports Authority to go forward. House Speaker William Howell says he was “was not aware of that” provision, that “we don’t intend to do that”, and that it “can be fixed”. How such language found its way into the bill in the first place remains a question, but it appears to be only a minor stumbling block. In other words: call off the hounds.