Sorry, but you're wrong. While I also don't want to pay for projects that are not needed, just not building anything does not help. This area is full of roads where exactly that happened. Where construction was deferred. And that is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Your null option theory, while simplistic and popularist, is not grounded in reality. Things need to be done, but they need to be prioritized and then cut off where the funding ends. Everything below that line either doesn't get done, or alternate funding is found for it. I don't think that should be a blanket tax on everybody, but an increase in the gas tax, which hasn't been raised since 1988.

That was in Arlington County, not Fairfax County.

@Catherine

A small portion of the Columbia Pike light rail is in Fairfax County (near Skyline) and has been approved by the BoS, but yes the vast majority is in Arlington. The county is expected to fund roughly $28 million of the cost.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/fairfax-supervisors-endorse-columbia-pike-streetcar/2012/07/31/gJQA72eQNX_story.html

Good luck getting people to work rolling shifts or 24 hour operations. Why do you think there's a fuss every time there's a proposal to change school hours - rush hour and business hours are designed to nicely fit in with school hours. No parent would work rolling shifts or take late-night hours and never see their children; and based on the Washingtonian survey of executives and management, an overwhelming majority are married and with children. So good luck making that catch on.

Not to mention it's a silly idea to work late-night shifts just because Virginia has pathetic public transportation compared to peers.

How about people give up their big yards and move closer to work. My wife and I used to live in Tysons. We now live in a smaller townhouse 2 miles away from the office and never see 66, 267, or 495. Most people living out in Sterling don't need an acre of land and five bedrooms; yet they complain about the commute nonstop.

Sorry Shreff, but your idea is a terrible one. While I also don't want to pay for projects that are not needed, just not building anything does not help. This area is still in an active expansion, growing both in density and area. That means traffic is only going to get worse, not better. You either have to provide public transportation, or enough roads for everyone to commute. This area doubled down on road, not rail, a long time ago before most of us were here, and now we are left holding the bag. And if you provide neither, you wind up with the Beltway and Los Angeles.

This area is full of roads where construction on the roads was deferred. Like the Fairfax County Parkway. Deferred for 30 years while the southern part of the county stagnated. Where just getting out of Burke was like breaking out of Lorton. The mentaility of "do nothing" is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Your null option theory, while simplistic and popularist, is not grounded in reality. Things need to be done, but they need to be prioritized and then cut off where the funding ends. Everything below that line either doesn't get done, or alternate funding is found for it. I don't think that should be a blanket tax on everybody, but an increase in the gas tax, which hasn't been raised since 1988.

Shreff: +1. Those billions of road costs directly subsidize those who have made a personal decision to live in cheaper, outlying areas, so they can have larger houses and more acreage. This is classic liberal overreach. Government is not the answer to every problem - certainly not this one. Massive road expansion projects just further delay the real solution, which is gradual evolution of many factors, including: more companies and gov agencies offering flex time, more telecommuting, more skype meetings, and a natural, evolutionary shift away from "we all live down here, work up there, and commute on lockstep, timeclock schedules". Does that conflict with your life choices (both your wife and you live in Spotsylvania, work at a USG job in DC and have kids in daycare and school, 40 miles from where you work)? Then change your life. Make some personal sacrifices that will ultimately improve your quality of life. Move close to where you work. One parent stays home. Etc.

Bob, they can start by taking over the bloated school system. I'm betting the skim the execs take and waste on junk over 10 years comes pretty close to $3 Billion.

Certainly our leaders need to look at EVERY ripoff that is going on. And so do our taxpayers and voters.

Phase II of the Silver Line is a priority now, because soon the bids will be approved by the same MWAA that allowed the project cost estimates to get jacked up to nearly two times what the job should cost - and as soon as those papers are signed, we will be locked into this ripoff.

We are already locked into the Phase I ripoff - let's stop the Phase II ripoff while we still can!

I have no doubt that this was well known for at least the past year. IMHO the plan with the Silver Line was (and still is) to hide the bad news, and hit us with surprise after surprise for many years. Our 'leaders' know that we would reject their spending plans if we knew what they will actually cost, and who will actually pay for them (the taxpayers, of course).

The taxpaying public obviously doesn't remember any of this from week to week. There are still two US DOT IG audits going on - the one announced on June 21, 2011 that has exposed the MWAA Board as a big clown show, and the super-secret one announced on March 15, 2012 that is looking into the financial soundness and risk of the Phase II plans. These audits used to be reported in the news - until the March 15, 2012 audit, that has NEVER been mentioned in any news article I have seen. The $53 million FTA blunder of July 3, 2011 was never reported in any news article I have seen either. I saw exactly one quote that even hinted at it - and it was just a random quote that contained a tangential reference that nobody would even have noticed unless they were looking for it. But that article seems to have vanished from the internet - an interesting feat.

The people behind these little mysteries can always just pack up and leave the area when the disaster they are creating gets to be too much for them. We can too, of course - but WE didn't pocket a few Billion dollars of overcharge while all this was going on.

People need to understand that tax revenues don't simply go up and down with property assessments. Local government determines the tax rate shortly after the assessments are released, and the tax rate adjusts the resulting revenues to match the budget that is also determined by the same local government.

The problem for the past decade or so, is that property tax rates stayed high, while assessments went up. This was not some random coincidence, it was a choice by our goverment leaders to increase tax revenues, in order to have more money to spend.

Do people want ever increasing real-dollar tax? You tell me. I thought there was supposed to be some economy of scale, but it certainly is not evident.