Phase One Of Silver Line Could Come Over Budget

There will be "a lot of challenges" to bring Phase 1 of the Silver Line close to its $2.8 billion budget, the head of the Dulles rail project said Wednesday.

Worst case scenario? It could come in as much as $150 million over budget, Pat Nowakowski, executive director of the Dulles rail project, told the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board, which is overseeing construction of the 11.5 miles of rail line through Tysons Corner to Reston.

“We have some work to do to try to bring that in,” Nowakowski said. “We have a lot of challenges.”

Among the issues, he said, is whether the airports authority can “achieve mitigation” with the contractor on items where Metro made changes to the first phase of the rail project. One of the issues is getting Metro to “pay for some of the betterments,” Nowakowski said.  

The project is scheduled to be finished in summer 2013, although the contractor, Dulles Transit Partners, has warned about construction issues that could delay completion by six months. The airports authority and the contractor have said they have enough time to resolve those problems.

Board members also on Wednesday discussed potential sources of revenue for Phase 2 of the Metro extension, which will run to Dulles International Airport and into Loudoun County.

Read more about the MWAA meeting in The Washington Post.