DC Airports Authority gets award for bonding toll road tolls for rail from Bond Buyer

Bond Buyer news gave their "Deal of the Year Award" to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) for using the revenues of the Dulles Toll Road to bond a metrorail transit line out to the airport and beyond into sparsely settled Loudoun County.

The editor of Bond Buyer was quoted: “We felt this deal deserved recognition for its creativity in deciding to capture the revenue generated by an existing toll highway and using it to pay for an expansion of transit at a time when funding for such projects is harder and harder to identify."

That's one way of looking at the deal.

Another is that it's a reckless and irresponsible misuse of motorist's tolls to build another Washington DC white elephant.

The notion is far-fetched that airline passengers are going to put up with the Metrorail fare machines and turnstiles, long escalators, erratic service and some 20 station stops, and then schlep with luggage along DC sidewalks. More likely a variety of door-to-door road vehicles - cars, cabs, minibuses and hotel vans - will continue to be more cost-effective and convenient for the vast majority of Dulles Airport passengers.

What is "creative" to some minds is plain wrong to others.

After all Bernie Madoff, the guys at Enron and Khalid Shiek Mohammed were in their various ways all pretty "creative" too.

The issue at the Dulles Toll Road is why should motorists' payments be artificially diverted to a mode that can't pay its own way?

If funds for rail transit projects are "hard to identify" maybe that's because people most places are figuring out they are a lousy investment?

For this Bond Buyer gets our "Publishers' Inanity of the Year Award" - editor.

http://www.bondbuyer.com/

TOLLROADSnews 2009-12-02