WaPo's Dr. Gridlock discusses the $1.7B Tysons transportation proposal, and we add some more

In a post on the Dr. Gridlock blog titled "Fairfax to consider $1.7 billion in Tysons Corner road and transit upgrades,"  Kafia A. Hosh writes:

Remaking traffic-choked Tysons Corner into a city isn’t going to be cheap. It will take an estimated $1.7 billion over the next 20 years to build an urban street grid, widen major roads and enhance bus service.

So how does Fairfax County foot the bill? By splitting the cost between the public and the private sector. County staff is suggesting that the public fund $991 million in improvements, and that Tysons landowners pay $706 million.

The McLean Citizens Association (MCA) expressed its dissatisfaction with the proposed funding formulation:

At the meeting, the McLean Citizens Association advocated for a funding split that is used to pay for road improvements in the Route 28 corridor. That method allocates 75 percent of the cost to the landowners in exchange for more density, and 25 percent to taxpayers. 

But in Tysons, the proposed funding split “puts the majority of the risk on taxpayers,” said Rob Jackson, president of the association. “The public needs to be protected against tax increases.”

The Reston Citizens Association (RCA) Board of Directors backed MCA's position in a resolution endorsing the MCA's position in March 2011 as posted in this blog and shared with the Fairfax Board of Supervisors.  When BOS Chairman Bulova responded by noting that the Tysons landowners have agreed to pay for the stations there ($300 million), RCA Board member Terry Maynard noted the following in his personal response to Chairman Bulova:

. . . your comments ignore the essence of the RCA resolution argument that, aside from the huge profit potential afforded Tysons landowners and developers through redevelopment, they can share their added tax burden with their tenants while additions to personal property or other county-wide taxes will fall on households that cannot share those costs with others.  Such taxes will erode household disposable income while providing no discernible household benefit. . . As stated in the RCA resolution, those who stand to profit from infrastructure investments in Tysons, that is, Tysons landowners and tenants, ought to be the ones who absorb the bulk of the costs of creating the conditions for that economic opportunity, not those of us in the rest of the county.   

The key point of the RCA and MCA resolutions’ argument is, I believe, that it is essentially unfair for a few Tysons landowners and businesses to make huge profits at the expense of the county’s citizens.