For about two years urbanists, traditionalists, conservatives, liberals, planners, and residents have all argued about the ghost project that never disappears, the outer beltway. Many of the outer beltway supporters have noted several studies that do show that a second bridge could help relieve traffic on 495 caused by BRAC, unfortunately the outer beltway only addresses a small portion of the true cause to this traffic and does not achieve any real results in the urban and commercially viable regions of northern Virginia. While a bridge crossing at Ashburn might help a lot of residents who work in Maryland, there would be almost no private funding assistance with this pathway as the region in question is substantially residential in nature.
In the absence of commercial business leader funding, who overwhelmingly are in favor of mass transit in place of road improvements instead, the bridge crossing would need to be a tolled system. Based on the speculated 3.5 to 5.0 billion dollar cost of this crossing project and ICC-like roadway project, the tolls would need to be quite significant. Imagine trying to build the entirety of the Silver Line project on ONLY tolls. As much as people have complained about the funding via tolls for the Silver Line, which is anticipated to total about $2.5 billion, imagine how hefty of a fee would be required for a fiscally solvent project which costs double that amount. Don’t expect the State to help out too much, considering how hard it was to get $150 million in funding of the Silver Line. Then again, the state has been willing to help with highway projects though… double standard perhaps? Either way, the toll revenue would need to be significant to pay back this project even if Virginia helped with $500 million (only 10% of the cost).
So how much would the toll have to be? Well the Dulles Toll Road has about 160,000 commuters per day (80,000 each way) of which approximately 90,000 (45,000 each way) come from Loudoun County based on VDOT’s “Annual Average Daily Traffic Volume Estimates By Section of Route”. Of the 45,000 residents in Loudoun County that use the Dulles Toll Road, only 15% are anticipated (pending the current resident/destination analysis being performed) to work in Maryland and would be users of the outer beltway. If this same percentage were applied to the 15,000 users in Fairfax County that are adjacent to Loudoun County the total number of prospective outer bridge users would be 9,000 total residents (or 18,000 total crossings).
First, one can see that this really won’t solve any traffic problems that occur the closer we get to the city, but it might be a political sale to Loudoun county residents so let’s continue. With most capital projects that attain private backing, such as the silver line bonds, a payback period could be anywhere from 10 years to 50 years. Obviously the shorter the payback period, the smaller the return interest needed, and the less costly the total project becomes.
For a 10 year period payback we can assume that growth in this corridor will not significantly increase (let’s assume on average over this 10 years the total users rise to 10,000 residents or 20,000 crossings daily). Let’s also be nice to the numbers and assume Virginia will help out the loyal GOP and wealthy residents of Loudoun county with a sizeable $500 million assistance. This leaves $4.5 billion that must be done through toll backed bonds. We’ll be generous again and say that even on weekends there will be 20,000 crossings. So how much would a Greenway like toll of 4 dollars generate over 10 years? Right around 300 million dollars. Are you starting to see the problem? There just isn’t enough actual users to fund a project that would be so costly, it is an entire order of magnitude short of its funding needs and last I checked no one would pay a 40 dollar toll to cross a bridge, no matter how nice of a route it would be.
Ok well how about a 50 year backing? Well this is tricky, you are gaining the benefit of more time, but you must also pay back far greater in the long run. For instance even with the historically low interest rates today on houses, a 30 year mortgage at the end of the term will have cost over 2 times the actual cost of the house. The more money you have up front, and the shorter your term, the less total cost. Let’s assume the bonds are backed with a private company that sees some great potential of the corridor (though unlike 495 HOT this is not a likely scenario) and let’s say the total payback cost of the toll users will only need to increase 10% in this 50 year life span (right around $5 billion total).
Let’s help out the numbers more, since 50 years is a long time (something that people who are against the cost of urbanizing Fairfax infrastructure don’t understand). Over the course of 50 years let’s assume a steady inflation of 3%. That would mean that the Greenway toll 50 years from now would be the same cost as today (4 dollars) if it were priced at 9 dollars. This is just inflation, nothing to be afraid of, it is the reason why a hamburger no longer costs 10 cents and is the natural progression of an economy that is experience growth (something that everyone wants). So over that 50 years the actual average toll intake is closer to 6.50 cents if it were priced similarly to the Greenway. One final assumption, let’s say that Loudoun county becomes a better place because of this corridor and 20,000 crossings becomes 60,000 crossings over that 50 years. On average again this would be a typical crossing rate of 40,000 trips per day. Again these assumptions are all very ambitious and favor a bridge crossing very aggressively.
The amount of revenue generated from the tolls would therefore be 4.7 billion dollars, 300 million dollars short but at least most of the way there. Therefore a toll rate of about $4.50 which would rise with inflation to about $9.50 in 50 years could theoretically work, but this assumes explosive growth of 300% in that same time as well as 365 days of steady toll user ship. It also assumes that Loudoun County lands the deal of the century with a private partner who will only require a 10% total payback over cost. That means only a 0.2% annual yield on the investment while taking on a multi-billion dollar risk. In reality any private partnership would need to see back at least a 100% payback over 50 years, closer to a 2% margin annually, which would force the tolls to be far greater to pay off the in total 9 billion dollar project.
This project as it is currently proposed simply does not make sense. There is no private interest either from the construction and management aspect or from the commercial business aspect (special tax districts). As it did over the past 20 years this ghost dream of an outer beltway crossing of the Potomac will once again die away once actual numbers are put behind it, but in the meanwhile it is distracting the true discussion.
This area DOES need another bridge crossing of the Potomac and it needs to function for both vehicles and rail expansion. In our follow up article we are going to talk about how it can be done, and where it should go to do the most benefit and be the most economical and functional siting.