Yet somehow you seem to miss the fact that the "truth" is not relative, or subject to opinion. It's a fact. Like 2+2=4. Fact. See? If you feel like it should be 6, that doesn't make it right, or in any way legitimate. We can agree to disagree, but as you said it must be reasonable. Fabricating "facts" and fabricating "evidence" is not reasonable. I don't know if you had any personal involvement, but the "oppisition" you spoke of positioned themselves in a way as to not be taken seirously by any free thinking person. Hence the vote.

Since when was it common sense to spend money we don't have on projects we don't need?

Vineet is right. There is a huge difference between spinning numbers to support your argument and practicing flat-out forgery, lying, and fear-mongering. I think by most standards of morality, some folks in the opt-out group crossed the line. Like when Delgaudio shouted,“come over here, those guys suck," at the public input session. Is that the kind of behavior we should expect from our elected officials? The pro-rail folks seemed to be the only ones behaving like adults in this argument.

Anybody who actually looked at the numbers knows that this was a ripoff. I can only hope that it manages to make even ten percent of the difference it was supposedy going to make, because it really looks like a disaster to me.

I think that people, whether they supported this thing or opposed it, should put that aside now and work hard, to make this colossal blunder work as well as it possibly can. Because if it falls on its face, this region is finished.

No, getting air passengers to the airport was only a talking point for the Silver Line, one of many advertising tricks.

Dulles Corridor Predicted to See Success with Rail
Herndon Patch, September 17, 2010
http://herndon.patch.com/articles/dulles-corridor-predicted-to-see-success-with-rail

"Stuart Mendelsohn, who served for eight years on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors ... said ... 'Rail is really there to get the employees there. Six-hundred feet really isn't going to stop the employees from using it,' he said. He said often fewer travelers use the rail to get to the airport than airport employees."

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Sharon Bulova Pushes for Alternative Location for Dulles Airport Metro Station
Herndon Patch, April 19, 2011
http://herndon.patch.com/articles/sharon-bulova-pushes-for-alternative-location-for-dulles-airport-metro-station

“'The percentage of people actually coming to the airport station to get on a plane will be a relatively small percentage,' [Fairfax County BOS chair] Bulova said. Most who use the station will be employees and the garage location is more convenient for them, she said."

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Airports Authority Chooses More Costly and 'User-Friendly' Option for Dulles Metro Station
WMAL, April 20, 2011
http://wmal.com/Article.asp?id=2154797

"Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton ... says that the vast majority of those who will wind up using the Dulles Metro station will be airport employees."

Thats the best idea, will sell when house prices spike just as the Innovation Center stop is built. Will be nice to get an extra $100 K for just a few years wait.

the same can be said to the five that betrayed Loudoun taxpayers today. ;) Except I'll be sure to contribute campaign funds and personal time to those that voted against Metro.

You are spot on, Rob! Toll Road users are the losers...shafted badly by MWAA. Horrible! Another case of grand plans paid for with OTM (i.e. other people's money). Those who want to take from Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul. Highly recommend working/voting against any who condone this way of doing things.

Hi, Baconater. I'm surprised that you and the other pen-namers are still around.

I guess you will walk or drive to the rail station when you take the train, since you have some aversion to using a bus. But now you need to arrange for day and night bus service to the rail stations. You have a few years to plan that. After January 1, 2012 you can probably work on it while you are stuck on the side roads in Fairfax County, because most people will not pay the usurious tolls - assuming they even still have a job to go to in the first place.

Congratulations, if you think this is a victory. Depending on who you really are, maybe it is - for you.

Bob- you put up a great fight and no one can criticize you for not being very vocal in your concerns. there are other great causes out there - kids who need homes, animals being neglected, spouses being abused. your energy and your calling to point out the bad guys could be put to even better use, now?. just a thought since this vote is now history. God bless you.
By the way, in case it helps you to take my input more seriously, i should have mentioned this to you before - this IS my real name, not a pen name. i have been called "TJ" by friends in the past.....you can call me Ray, you can call me Ray Jay, you can call me RJ Jr...... but you doesn't have to call me Mr. Johnson - (now, i''m tipping my age because i doubt many under 50 will recall that reference but i'll bet you can !!)

Oops, I meant after January 1, 2013 - not January 1, 2012.

This really is an 80% overcharge, t_j, and that's a lot of money. Money doesn't come easily to me, and I hate to see taxpayers ripped off, because I am one of them. I also know that the beneficiaries of this outpouring of undeserved public money will not be so generous themselves. And I can very much do without the likes of the MWAA Board, that was exposed by the DOT Inspector General's recent report. The political wagon-circling that gives support to that ilk is not a pretty sight to me, either. I hope Virginia's Governor manages to seat a few better apples in there, SOON, before MWAA can make any more trouble.

but what are you going to do, keep arguing after the debate is over? that seems unproductive when there are so many other good causes to which you could apply your energy. don't forget - i offered to pay your tax increases if you would just acknowledge some of the benefits of the Metro and you passed on that. so it's not really about your money - this must be about your sense of injustice. surely there's bigger injustices than Metro...have you seen what the govt of Syria is doing to innocent civilians? good Lord. i saw a woman at Walgreen's the other night - her husband had her on the run for her safety and she couldn't pay for basic medicinal needs....just look around, there's lots more that's egregiously wrong out there than a train and tax debate.
you made a lot of good points, you fought the good fight. but sometimes the other side "wins". when that happens, i move on and find an even better cause to fight, and see if i can win the next one. anyway, i wish you well.

Now t_j, bearing false witness is not a good thing for you to do. You didn't want me to just acknowledge this or that good thing that Metro might produce - you wanted me to lavish praise onto the project for pay. I think there are enough people doing that already, don't you?

What I fought in this rail ripoff, is the problem that is destroying this nation, and many nations of the world - excess borrowing, to pay excess charges, for things that are not needed. In this instance, a bus system was long needed, but never built; instead, we will have premature rail at an exorbitant price. Instead, we will be struggling with immediate overwhelming needs, when we should have been making prudent preparations. Do you advocate that I should not oppose such blunders?

Bob - let me come at this another way. I'll take full responsibility for my prior offer being misinterpreted - my fault, OK?
1) you said "money is not easy to come by for people like you"
2) i'm willing to send you money to help you......cash....to your home
3) my motivation is two -fold
a) help you with something that is clearly very painful for you
b) help you use your talents to engage in bigger, more important issues in this world than a train and taxes
4) so my offer is to send you cash if you will tell me, and i will trust you without proof, what good works you'll do with a portion of it. what cause that specifically helps known individual people to be better off because of Bob Bruhns e.g. "i will serve two hours at the soup kitchen", "I will go down to Big Brothers/Big Sisters and volunteer to help those young kids", "i will take in a dog from the SPCA and wash and feed and take care of it" etc.

That's my offer - to give you money to help you personally and to help you to help others. If you plan to turn this offer down, please pause a minute, maybe pray or meditate and ask "why would i reject this offer to help me and others and choose to stay at my PC reiterating points i've already made to people who've already heard them on an issue that's already been decided?"
I'm challenging you Bob, because deep down i think you're a good guy. Challenging you to do greater things with your talents. i am rooting for you Bob!

t_j, perhaps instead you should make your offer to the people who will pocket a billion and a half dollars of overcharge from this job. I know, they wouldn't stoop to discuss anything with actual people, so you would never get the opportunity. But tell someone else what to do, ok?

i'm sorry but i don't understand your response at all. i'm not arguing with it, i'm saying i literally don't understand what you wrote. why would i give money to people you think have or just got a lot unfairly? are you rejecting my offer to give you money to help you and others of your choosing ? you said that money isn't easy to come by. do you not want me to send you cash in the mail that all you have to do is share some with other people in need? that's as easy as it gets and with your passion for people being wronged, i was hoping you'd give it real consideration

Pork for all!! Oink Oink!!!

be a good winner so as not to set yourself up for eating Crow later !
:)

Don't worry - with a Billion and a half dollars of overcharge in this second phase alone, there will be plenty of pork going around.

Apparently the conventional wisdom is that things like Metro need 'an expanding tax base'. I wonder how many people realize that this means 'Ponzi Scheme'. It would work, if no more Metro had to be installed into that expanding tax base. That was why there was such a push for federal funding - it provided exactly such taxation without service. But the feds said no, because this Phase II plan was so bad that they anticipate failure.

The only way we can avoid that failure - if avoiding failure is even possible at all now - is to resist excessive prices on all future work. The near-double prices and the false financing plans in Dulles Rail must never be permitted to happen again.

Yes, it's time to move forward and figure out how we are going to deal with WMATA's $13 Billion maintenance backlog, because it's our problem now. And let's figure what we are going to do about the Rosslyn Tunnel, because it is our problem now too. And the tolls... are not going to work. Let's figure what we are going to do about that.

We are paying 1.8 times for this rail extension. Let's not pay 1.8 times for those things too. We just aren't that rich.

I really think the solution is a rail lottery. Call it 'Making Tracks'. Hey, if Governor Flipflop likes this rail thing now, let him get such a lottery approved. Otherwise, the only solution will be taxes and fees.

Yes - now that we committed to premature rail, let's put in the bus service that was really needed in the first place. Somebody certainly didn't want to do that earlier, or it would have proven to be effective, and the premature rail might not have been approved. Also, business would have built up that could pay for conversion to rail, when the time came. But no, somebody wanted to make things difficult - and they succeeded, didn't they. And now we are paying 1.8 times for the Silver Line. This is the sort of thing that real leaders oppose.

Unfortunately, this happens everywhere. When projects get this big and this massively overpriced, the payoffs are too big for crooked politicians and the news media to resist. They don't know or care what they are doing, and the results are messy at best. Crooked politics is the reason why citification never seems to produce any economy of scale.

Happy 4th of July, Bob :)

Happy 4th of July, CC!

While people enjoy watching the fireworks tonight, maybe they should consider this: our nation's founders were not exactly pure, but I really don't think that this kind of Billion and a half dollar overcharge was what they fought for at Valley Forge, Trenton, etc.

Yes, don't think how you are being massively ripped off. You might think of why the American Revolution happened in the first place.

Bob - come on now, breath in, breathe out.....the sun WILL come up tomorrow...it's a beautiful day. join us outside enjoying God's graces and the benefits of living in an albeit not perfect but still great country. i've travelled the world - we are lucky to live here !

A few more ripoffs like this rail fiasco, and this country will go the way of Greece, t_j. I am happy that the people behind this sort of thing are getting smaller jobs, not at the Big Dig level any more, since Chris Christie stopped them in New Jersey. When they are reduced to the point where they have to overcharge for painting doghouses, I'll be ready to celebrate.