If you thought that the minority of complainers in Loudoun had been told to buzz off when the Board of Supervisors voted to approve construction of Silver Line through the county and to fund it through special taxes assessed in the districts most effected… well you would be wrong. The sentiment still exists, even without any rationale or reasoning behind it.
In a letter to the Leesburg Patch, another tax pig supporter writes to denote his fear now that Toll Road Prices will increase unsustainably. No mention is provided to the fact that the section of toll road within Loudoun County, the Greenway, is not part of the MWAA control and in no way will be modified for metro construction.
The letter writer, Mr. David LaRock, discusses Tollmageddon as a failure of MWAA leadership. Unfortunately, his own argument is invalidated by his statements. “If Virginia takes control of the DTR, the savings would be close to $2 billion over the 30-year life of the bonds used to pay for Dulles Rail. That is $2 billion that will not come out of the pockets of DTR users. That savings alone should be reason enough to take action.”
The fact that the Governor and Virginia will only be paying $150 million dollars towards this project, while it routinely spends hundreds of millions on road projects in GOP districts like central virginia, is a failure of our Statehouse not of a board who is not able to affect bond rates on a private project. This does not require the removal of MWAA from the project, it requires Virginia to back the project whole heartily. The airport creates billions in revenue for the commonwealth, so why is Governor McDonnell hesitant to helping fund its expansion via this project? Oh right, because this is a transit project, and just like every other transit project in Virginia (Columbia Pike Light Rail, Norfolk Light Rail, bus funding) the state has shown that is has no interest in spending tax dollars. Never mind that tax dollars from areas that do use transit go to subsidize massive road projects elsewhere.
Mr. LaRock, the more important issue here is personal accountability. You have selected to live in Hamilton Virginia, which is even FURTHER west than Leesburg and are complaining about a toll road that is outside of your county and 20 miles east of where you live, running 35 miles east of where you live. Maybe it is your poor choice to live this far out that makes it difficult for you to reach major employment centers in Fairfax County, Arlington, and DC.
Perhaps you should take some control of your own life and select to live closer than 50 miles to the commercial business district and stop complaining about others who do live close to jobs that they are using your tax dollars. In this case your money will fund NONE of this project so long as you don’t drive on the toll road, and no one is forcing you to do so.
Oh wait, on further investigation we find out WHY you feel this way. Mr. LaRock is president of LaRock Builders Incorporated, a company which constructs new and remodeled single family homes. I wonder why a person who wants to encourage more sprawl development further and further west would like to keep toll rates as cheap as possible. Could it be that he has some benefit from the unsustainable suburban sprawl that most people that he is supposedly protecting in Western Loudoun hate even more than the metro coming?
We suggest Mr. LaRock stop scapegoating the problems on the MWAA, who has no ability to affect what interest rate will need to be paid to investors, and start expecting more from the Governor. After all, Mr. David LaRock is also actively a part of the group LoudounConservatives.com who overwhelmingly supports Governor McDonnell’s and former Petroleum Institute employee Sean Connaughton (Secretary of Transportation). In general Mr. LaRock should like think twice before casting LaStones.