Not Completely Dead

The Tyson's Metro Tunnel, which recently looked comatose, has announced its intention to go for a walk on the news that Virginia has well over a year to finalize and deliver its plans to the Federal Transit Authority before it has to start worrying about losing funding for the project. The Commonwealth has been shush-shushing tunnel supporters on the grounds that their proposal is too late and would jeopardize Uncle's promise to pony up.

The WaPo sums up the insanity of this whole business rayther nicely today:

Every few weeks, it seems, bring another argument in favor of building a 23-mile Metrorail extension from the East Falls Church station to Dulles International Airport underground through Tysons Corner instead of on an elevated track.

And yet the $4 billion project marches toward the construction of a raised structure that would slice across Tysons on a track as high as 70 feet, complicating Fairfax County's efforts to create a walkable downtown.

After coming close to choosing the underground route last summer only to be warned against it by federal transit officials and Northern Virginia congressmen, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) is standing by his decision against the tunnel, even as the protests grow louder.

This has left people in Northern Virginia puzzling over a single question: How is it that an option that almost everyone agrees is preferable probably won't get built?

How, indeed. Meanwhile, Governor "Aw, Do Us A Favor" Kaine is still looking for somebody to whack the Tunnel on the back of the head and toss it on the dead cart:

But Kaine is showing no sign of changing his mind. There is still too great a chance that altering plans would delay the project by two years or more, driving up the cost and imperiling the needed federal funding, Kaine and his staff say. It's better, they say, to proceed with the project, imperfect as it may be, and get it done on schedule -- with construction starting next year and reaching Tysons by 2012 and Dulles by 2015.

This has left tunnel supporters directing their ire at Kaine, even though it was his willingness to reconsider a tunnel last summer that helped spark the opposition to the elevated track and raise expectations for a change in design.

His insistence on forging ahead as been particularly hard to accept for the many Northern Virginians who consider themselves Kaine supporters but who dread an elevated track in Tysons.

They say they believe Kaine when he says he really would prefer to have a tunnel but are flummoxed by his and others' inability to follow through.

"I am a very loyal Tim Kaine supporter, and I understand the issues that he faces . . . but I can't explain it," said Bill Felmlee, a Vienna resident and member of the Fairfax Democratic Committee. "I can't explain what's going on."

Don't blame me - I voted for Kilgore.