Dear Delegate Comstock,

The pending increases in the Dulles Toll Road are an enormous threat to quality of life for your constituents, and they realize it. When tolls double, 35,000-50,000 cars/day will be diverted off of the DTR, with most of them diverted onto Rt. 7, Rt. 193, and neighborhood roads that go straight through neighborhoods in your district. For reference, Rt. 7 handled approximately 60,000 cars/day between the Loudoun County line and the beltway, and Georgetown Pike runs 20,000 between Rt. 7 and the Beltway (VDOT's 2010 AADT report). These roads are already congested and cannot safely absorb this influx of additional traffic. 

Your constituents understand the devastating impacts Tollmageddon will bring to their communities, and are looking to you for leadership. The first step in reigning in the toll increases is for Virginia to revoke the Dulles Toll Road Permit and Operating Agreement, and rescue our toll road from the waste and corruption of MWAA. Secretary Connaughton, days after receiving a notice from MWAA that they wanted to extend their substantial completion deadline for the Dulles Metrorail project, said

"We are actively evaluating whether we can take the project over," Connaughton said. "These guys [MWAA] are a disaster. ... We're at the point, quite honestly, where we think we could potentially do it better, cheaper, faster."

Yesterday's OpEd in the Washington Examiner started a discussion on this issue of retaking the toll road. More articles will follow, examining further reasons for a retake. The citizens of Northern Virginia will not allow this corrupt organization to destroy our communities and way of life. Hundreds of local residents have signed our petition to say NO TOLL INCREASE! Please read the some of the comments from your constituents we have selected and posted under the petition. We have removed the zip codes for privacy reasons, but a large number of these are from your district, and they are looking to you for leadership. "Reforming" MWAA will not fix the problem, as they will still be  an independent body that is not accountable to voters, and have no real incentive to lower costs. Retaking the Dulles Toll Road is the best road forward, and your constituents know this. 

What will you do to protect your constituents from Tollmageddon? More appropriation from the Commonwealth is not an acceptable option, as taking funding from desperately needed road improvement projects to feed the MWAA monster's greedy appetite merely wastes those funds on MWAA's insane 6%+ interest rates. A retake of the Toll Road is the best way forward. Are you willing to work for your constituents on this? We are working this issue hard, and will be glad to let them know if/when you start leading on this. 

Daniel Davies

Operations Manager

www.NoTollIncrease.org

540-751-8267

=============================================================================

Dear Senator Black,

As you know, the pending toll increases on the Dulles Toll Road are an enormous threat to quality of life for your constituents, and they realize it. Soon, when tolls double, up to 50,000 cars/day will be diverted off of the DTR, with most of them diverted onto Rt. 7 and neighborhood roads. For reference, Rt. 7 handled approximately 60,000 cars/day between the Loudoun County line and the beltway, (VDOT's 2010 AADT report). These roads are already congested and cannot safely absorb this influx of additional traffic. The air pollution caused by thousands of cars and trucks stuck in traffic will be enormous. This reduced mobility will cause Loudoun County to become isolated from the Washington DC area.

Your constituents do not like toll increases, hate traffic, and are learning about the devastating impacts Tollmageddon will bring to their communities. They are looking to you for leadership. The first step in reining in the toll increases is for Virginia to revoke the Dulles Toll Road Permit and Operating Agreement, and rescue our toll road from the waste and corruption of MWAA. Secretary Connaughton, days after receiving a notice from MWAA that they wanted to extend their substantial completion deadline for the Dulles Metrorail project, said

"We are actively evaluating whether we can take the project over," Connaughton said. "These guys [MWAA] are a disaster. ... We're at the point, quite honestly, where we think we could potentially do it better, cheaper, faster."

A recent OpEd in the Washington Examiner started a discussion on this issue of retaking the toll road. More articles will follow, examining further reasons for a retake. The citizens of Northern Virginia will not allow this corrupt organization to destroy our communities and way of life and to squander our hard-earned money. Hundreds of local residents have signed our petition to say NO TOLL INCREASE!

Please read the comments posted under the petition. We have removed the zip codes for privacy reasons, but a large number of these are from your district, and they are looking to you for solutions and that will only come from decisive leadership. As I have heard you say,'MWAA is a corrupt organization', and I hope Virginia will not continue to hand money to them.

Thank you for your effort to bring accountability to MWAA with Senate Bill 3 in the last session. Can we tell our group what you intend to do to avoid this pending disaster? "Reforming" MWAA will not fix the problem, as they will still be  an independent body that is not accountable to voters and have no real incentive to lower costs. Retaking the Dulles Toll Road is the best road forward, and your constituents know this. 

David LaRock

NoTollIncrease.com

MWAA: There is a Better Way

Wouldn't it be crazy if your community was threatened by an approaching storm, but local authorities did

little to help citizens avoid the pending danger? That is about where Northern Virginia stands with the

perfect storm of Dulles Toll Road tolls, traffic and taxes that is bearing down on us. There is a lot of talking among 

politicians, but meaningful action is scarce.  

Some elected leaders are speaking out against the "ethically challenged" Airports Authority (MWAA) board,

and for good reason. But, this talk is not enough when they can do so much more. Here's

how.

Dump MWAA and SAVE BILLIONS

Enough Talk...Take the Toll Road Back

DTR tolls are going to skyrocket soon, making traffic much worse on local roads.  Virginia has appropriated $150 million and almost jacked that amount up to $450 million in the last session of the legislature. Our representatives must protect their constituents by removing MWAA. All they are doing now is feeding what the Washington Examiner calls the MWAA Frankenstein monster while it grows stronger and terrorizes the whole region.. 

click on the picture to see the video

 Retake the Dulles Toll Road Now

 Secretary Sean Connoughton on April 14, 2012, said the State was so unhappy with MWAA that it would rather finish building the Silver Line itself. 

“We are actively evaluating whether we can take the project over. These guys (MWAA) are a disaster,” Connaughton said. “We’re at the point, quite honestly, where we think we could potentially do it better, cheaper, faster.” Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connoughton

George Allen recently said, "Start taking care of the taxpayers and the Toll Road users"

Where is Joe May?

               Have You Heard From this Delegate ?

If you follow the news about how the Dulles Rail project is playing out, you will see it is an absolute disaster. Your taxes and tolls are being handed over to MWAA (the Airports Authority) and squandered. Who is in charge of this mess? Well, it appears it is NOT State Delegate and Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Joe May. May is supposed to represent most of Loudoun County, and parts of Clarke and Frederick Counties. 

So, where is Joe May when it comes to protecting his people from this outrageous waste of taxpayer’s and toll payer’s money that is being used to pay giant perks to retired MWAA employees and send union bosses traveling around the globe? Joe May is silent.

In fact, believe it or not, back in February 2012, Delegate May spoke up in favor of reining in MWAA at a Loudoun Republican Committee meeting, and agreed with a resolution before the Committee directed at bringing open-audit and FOIA to MWAA. In the weeks that followed, however, May made no effort to advance House Bill 2, which would have brought some accountability to MWAA. There is no excuse for May’s neglect.

Likewise now, as tolls begin to skyrocket on the Dulles Toll Road and the traffic backs up throughout Loudoun and Fairfax, Joe May owes us some answers.

MWAA bashing for Sport and Political Points

Stupid Dead Horse!

We've all heard this before:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

The question this brings to mind is whether MWAA's behavior is an unintended consequence or a calculated liability. Consider that Dulles Rail never was a bonafide transportation project , but for years land developers have smelled the profit potential of all the artificially induced development that local governments would release if the project went through, kinda like the sub-prime mortgage boom. These monied interests also learned how easy it is to manipulate inexperienced and ambitious politicians with campaign donations and to guide public opinion through the media.

However, in order to move a bad project like extending Metro westward into Loudoun, there were a few pesky problems that will not be easy to brush under the rug. Problems such as dealing with the "Who pays"  and "Why is Traffic Worse" questions, and how to deal with all the ticked off folks who are affected by this scheme. No worries.  Our political leaders have sharp instincts when it comes to dodging blame, so they decided to bring in a surrogate to manage the dirty work.

That is where MWAA comes in. By handing over the job of building the Dulles Rail and equipping them with the Dulles Toll Road as the cash cow, all that was left to do is step back and complain about how MWAA was spending too much and raising tolls too high. 

Now, because of these shrewd maneuvers, politicians are picking up bonus leadership points by demanding accountability from MWAA instead of being held responsible for MWAA's gross mismanagement of our dollars. Oh, the game of politics. It allows the politicians to fail and then to take credit for the fix. With MWAA however,  the fix is not happening. Follow these articles and decide for yourself if anything is really improving for the taxpayers.

IG Report Highlights MWAA Board Conflicts
read more here

Posted on May 15, 2012 In a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-10, declared that he was “deeply troubled” by the findings, honing in on MWAA’s contracting practices, conflict-of-interest policies and recusal practices. Wrote Wolf:
Most egregious are the IG’s findings about MWAA’s contracting practices. … Particularly concerning are the number of sole source contracts issued. As you know, MWAA is required by law to fully compete any contract over $200,000, with limited exceptions. Yet the IG’s report states that “[d]uring the period of our review, MWAA awarded five sole source contracts that were over $200,000, but did not fall under any of MWAA’s categorical exemptions. These contract awards, which amount to $6 million, did not have Board approval.” Not only did MWAA abuse the exemptions permitted under federal law, they issued numerous contracts that failed to meet even these basic standards.

Airports board takes care of its own, including Jeffrey Thompson 
July 30, 2012

"The day after Mame Reiley resigned for health reasons from the airports authority, overseeing the $6 billion Dulles Rail project, the authority quietly created a full-time job for her as a "senior adviser" to authority CEO Jack Potter and agreed to pay her $180,000 a year..." read more here

2007 Letter to MWAA from William T. Coleman Jr. Senior Partner and Senior Counselor of O'Melveny & Myers LLP

 Read the entire Coleman letter here.


2012 Dulles rail project needs better FTA oversight, audit finds

  read more here

The Federal Transit Administration’s oversight of the Silver Line rail project must be more responsive to safety issues and more aggressive in its monitoring of costs and scheduling, according to a federal audit released last week .
The 44-page report by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general focuses on what actions the FTA has taken to address safety concerns first raised in 2009. It also recommends that the agency use its oversight role to ensure that costs are more closely monitored.

Contracting Practices Do Not Always Comply with Airport Lease Requirements
GAO-02-36, Mar 1, 2002

read more

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Act of 1986 transferred operating responsibility for Dulles and Reagan National Airports from the federal government to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), an independent, nonfederal, public entity. MWAA, which has a 50-year lease to run the two airports, has entered into a wide range of contracts for supplies, construction, and other services. Although MWAA issued guidance in 1993 for the awarding of contracts and concession franchises, GAO found that the guidance does not adequately reflect competitive contracting principles and is out of date in many respects. Moreover, MWAA does not use its guidance to award contracts for non-concession goods and services. MWAA did not obtain full and open competition for 15 of the 35 contracts GAO reviewed, raising concerns about whether MWAA obtained the best value for the goods and services provided. The failure to obtain full and open competition also raises concerns about whether MWAA has (1) deprived prospective contractors of the chance to compete for contracts and (2) fairly evaluated all of the contractors that have competed for procurements. Finally, by not following recognized competitive principles, MWAA could be giving the appearance of favoritism in its contracting decisions. 

 

Dulles Rail board denounced as 'dysfunctional'

read more here

August 1, 2012

At practically every turn, a majority of the MWAA board seems determined to undermining the public's trust and confidence in the integrity of the authority and its decision-making," Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton said. "It may be time to begin a serious dialogue about the future of MWAA and its current governance structure."

The range of behavior that seems to be typical of MWAA makes it cleat they do not derserve to be entrusted with managing huge public assets such as the Dulles Toll Road. It will be very interesting to see if anything is done to correct that.


David LaRock

NOVA is strangled by traffic congestion

Northern Virginia is being strangled by traffic congestion and some of the highest taxes in America. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine gave away your Dulles Toll Road (DTR) so it could be the cash cow for Dulles Rail. If DTR tolls start soaring to pay for the Dulles Rail Bailout, beginning January 1, 2013, 35,000 more cars per day will be forced onto already-congested local roads, causing increased gridlock to the region. Can you afford another $1,125 in tolls per year? Do you want to spend more time idling in traffic, wasting $4.00/gal. gas? Say No Toll Increase!"

Dulles Rail triggers more, not less, traffic congestion

Read the full article here

Dulles Rail doesn’t remedy traffic congestion and, indeed, triggers more development that, in turn, increases traffic congestion and causes a need for more road and non-rail transit improvements that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars more.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement for Phase 1, which was prepared by former Gov. Mark Warner’s administration in its waning days, shows (Table 6-2.2) that with the single exception of the Dulles Airport Access Road, no major travel route studied experiences an improvement in Level of Service because of Dulles Rail.
The additional traffic occurs despite the arrival of Dulles Rail; the construction of high-quality, mixed-use development at the four Tysons rail stations; the imposition of extremely aggressive Traffic Demand Management measures by the county and Tysons landowners to reduce volumes; and the availability of substantially more bus service serving Tysons. Yet, after 2030, the road network serving Tysons fails because of more automobiles and trucks. Therefore, between 2030 and 2051 — the end of the planning horizon — every new automobile trip to Tysons must be canceled by a new transit or pedestrian trip.

Comment from Reston Patch:

The Analyst2:26 pm on Saturday, July 28, 2012CC Mojo Wrote:
"We get better jobs, better commute, better living "
This comment epitomizes absolutely everything that's wrong with this Country. A collection of special interests, primarily developers and commercial realtors, presents a collection of unassociated prospects, ties them all together, presents them to the public, and the public believes them - not because there's a basis in fact, but rather because it's nice to believe it's true.
Rail has ->nothing<- to do with jobs. Companies are not going to spend millions of dollars relocating an office within the county to be near a rail station. Out of state companies will not relocate here at a cost of perhaps 10's of millions of dollars just because there's rail.
We heard similar arguments in the dot-com boom. "If we build it, they will come, because N.Va. is the self declared head of the dot-com industry." They built it - no one came, except some companies that were so poorly managed (stupid) they all went bankrupt. Many of the buildings are **still** empty.
I'm afraid we need some new leaders, and leaders that represent the people, not special interests. If you look into the backgrounds of  the board of supervisors members, I think you will come to realize that some, if not most of them, have no business or even qualifications for making decisions of such scope. Special interests must surely find these people an easy target.
If the jobs don't happen, or worse yet they start leaving, don't say I didn't warn you. 

“Nickled and dimed to death at the toll booth,”

                                                       

AAA: Dulles Tolls Are “Reverse Robin Hood Syndrome”

Northern Virginia motorists are being “nickled and dimed to death at the toll booth,” Mid-Atlantic AAA charged today, calling the $6 billion construction of Metro’s Silver Line and the tolls that are financing it, a “silver bullet” aimed at the heart of motorists and consumers.

Read More Here