Washington is abuzz because the Federal Government looks like it will refuse to sign off on funding for an extension of the Orange Line (the Metro line that goes west into Virginia) to Dulles airport. While there are legitimate issues about the lack of transparency in how the Federal Transit Adminstration made its decision, it almost certainly made the correct decision.
Heavy rail is not a good transporation option in the absence of high levels of density. John Kain showed years ago that inapporpriate heavy rail cannibalizes funding for other forms of transit, and tends to reduce public transportation ridership.
A rail line to Dulles is particularly inappropriate because there is already a dedicated four-lane highway to Dulles--a highway that is vitually never congested. This means a viable public transportation option--nice express buses that run frequently--could be put into place at relatively little expense. The problem now is that the buses don't run frequently enough to enough places, and so they are not an attractive option relative to driving. But $5 billion (the cost of the proposed extension) placed in treasury securities could fund an awfully large number of bus routes.
I am actually a little more sympathetic to heavy rail than was Kain--I am not sure his work captured all the general equilibrium benefits of rail under certain circumstances. But I am pretty sure that the proposed extension to Dulles is economically a non-starter.
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