August 22, 2002

Mr. Corey W. Hill
Northern Virginia Regional Manager
Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation
1550 Wilson Boulevard
Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22209

Dear Mr. Hill:

The Northern Virginia Roundtable, a membership organization of chief executives from Northern Virginia’s largest companies and institutions, supports the selection of rail as the locally preferred alternative for the Dulles Corridor Transit Project. A full rail system from West Falls Church to Loudoun County along the Dulles Corridor is our ultimate and unqualified goal. This is a policy the Roundtable re-affirmed as recently as 2000.

Bringing transit to the Dulles Corridor from West Falls Church to Loudoun County has long been discussed as a necessary transportation initiative in Northern Virginia. Tysons Corner and the Reston-Herndon-Dulles Airport-Eastern Loudoun Corridor are two of the largest employment and residential centers in the country with the Council of Governments forecasting significant additional jobs and residential growth in the corridor through 2025. Currently planned transportation improvements will be unable to accommodate the projected growth (71% increase in jobs and 56% increase in population) without implementation of expanded transit options to compliment the baseline projects. Advocates on behalf of Washington Dulles International Airport have long desired rail access.

In its support of rail for the corridor, the Roundtable also brings to your attention several additional comments we hope can be incorporated into the final EIS.

• Suggest development of a strategy for rail that takes advantage of interest in rail to Tysons as soon as is feasible but no later than 2010 and rail throughout the rest of the corridor to Loudoun as soon as financing can be secured from the federal government.
• The strategy should provide the ability to implement transit enhancements in the corridor beyond the baseline until rail can be provided.
• The strategy should examine the benefits -- if any -- of providing rail transit in the Reston-Herndon-Dulles-Loudoun section in a way that allows a few stations to be built initially concurrently with the Tysons section to provide service to Washington-Dulles International Airport as soon as possible and allow for the construction of fill-in stations on a different schedule. The related costs for this strategy should be examined prior to finalizing the EIS.
• Support the landowners’ interest in assisting with financing through a special tax district and acknowledge the role the transportation referendum can plan in helping provide the local share of the project’s capital costs.
• Support the Commonwealth’s use of toll revenues to provide transit improvements in the corridor in a timely manner. Use of toll revenues from the Dulles Toll Road should be limited to use in the corridor.
• The final EIS should more fully address mitigation tools to minimize the traffic congestion forecasts around stations and to further refine the impact the preferred alternative will have on metropolitan Washington’s air quality. The public deserves more definitive information on addressing these two critical issues.

The members of the Northern Virginia Roundtable looks forward to the implementation of rail and enhanced transit opportunities in the corridor.

Sincerely,

James W. Dyke, Jr.
Chairman

Cc: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority
Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board
Washington Metropolitan Washington Transit Authority