RestonWeb

[Bob Bruhns]

I told you about the financial problems in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. But just now, I happened to notice the latest municipal financial emergency. This disaster was apparently caused by financial fraud, much like we were handed on this rail project. Don't think this can't happen here.

San Bernardino to file for bankruptcy
USA Today, July 11, 2012
Article

[Bob Bruhns]

In Dulles Rail Phase I, MWAA found that it could redact all line item construction price information, and not answer to FOIA law. It established hyperinflated prices that were later used to 'justify' its redacted Dulles Rail Phase II construction line item prices when MWAA got SO out of control, running the costs SO high, that the FTA came in and leaked a few of them. $83 million for rail stations that should have cost $40 million, $26,394 per space for parking garages that should have cost $15,000 per space, $237 million to $272 million per mile, when it should have cost about $116 million to $136 million per mile (my best estimate is that it cost 1.8 times what it should have cost).

A conservative estimate of the OVERCHARGE on this job is $1.5 Billion for Phase II alone, and probably another $1 Billion to $1.5 Billion of OVERCHARGE for Phase I, plus billions more for finance costs. Maybe we should have at least reduced that overcharge? Because here we are, struggling to optimize the application of $150 million from Virginia, while a flood of bloated costs are about to drown Northern Virginia - and all for a rail line that will be more trouble than help. Isn't this just great.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

Unless real name Bruhns can delineate the priced items that should be removed from Phase 2 that add up to the $1.5 billion overcharge, his 2X web of disjointed thoughts continues to be a mere fantasy and lie. Perhaps he would suggest items such as the following to eliminate his so-called $1.5 billion overcharge in the professionally generated 100% preliminary engineering estimate (and separate independent estimate),

Single track the entire 11 mile Phase 2 segment.
Purchase only half the planned rolling stock.
Eliminate safety testing of the cars and related running systems.
Eliminate escalators and elevators in the stations.
Build only single story stations.
Eliminate pedestrian bridges in favor of pedestrian signals & painted road walkways
Eliminate the Dulles rail yard.
Eliminate the Airport station and bus from the Route 28 station.
Buy all construction materials (steel, concrete, etc) from China or maybe Bangladesh
Employ only Herndon day laborers at minimum wage, illegal or otherwise
Dissolve the MWAA project team and let the selected Phase 2 contractor run free

Pen name stix thinks all of the above is nuts. However real name Bruhns can tell us his own cost saving ideas, keeping in mind that the aggregate must add to his ridiculous $1.5 billion lie (as I now view it)...
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[Bob Bruhns]

I see, stix. If you disagree with me, then I must be lying. That explains why you use a pen name, I guess.

Just offhand, I see that you left off an item on your list:

Take Dulles Rail out of the incompetent hands of the MWAA Board, don't let the incompetent FTA hand you high cost estimates, reject bloated bids, and contract to pay only what the line items should cost.

Talk about lies - the costs we saw were about 1.8 times what they should have been. And based on the MWAA document that was included online from a recent WAMU interview with MWAA CFO Andrew Rountree, MWAA apparently bungled the costs that were supposedly removed from Dulles Rail Partnership responsibility by Fairfax County and Loudoun County - by several tens of millions of dollars - and on the high side in both cases, of course. Maybe it was deliberate, or maybe they had no idea what the numbers meant, and they simply took the wrong numbers from their redacted documents when they added notes to their graph. It's amazing how they still managed to jack the prices in the upward direction, though.

The MWAA Board still resists the will not only of the people, but also of the elected officials who have appointment power. Oh no, they won't seat additional members, they won't leave when fired, they think they own Northern Virginia.

At best, this rail line is not going to be so great that it is worth allowing that group to hijack this entire region. Even now, with several of the previous members gone, that Board very much needs to be dismantled. Bottom line, the MWAA Board is at best incompetent, and the keys need to be taken away from them before they cause an even worse train wreck than we are already facing now.
_________________
Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

Let me be clear to you real name Bob Bruhns.. unless you can identify the Phase 2 line items you think are overpriced and what they "should cost", and that adds up your $1.5 billion overcharge claim, your claim has no credibility at all.. and neither do you in my view.

Remember, to you only real namers tell the truth, and this is your chance to prove it...
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[Bob Bruhns]

I think I've already done that, stix. Shall I direct the entire operation now, and do all of the work as well?

You know, if you work in management, it would explain why you use a pen name. Nobody would hire you in a million years if they saw you in operation like this. Maybe you are in sales.
_________________
Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

Let the record stand that real name Bob Bruhns can not, or otherwise will not identify the line items of the MWAA's professionally derived (and independently verified) 100% preliminary engineering cost estimate for Phase 2 that would be eliminated to achieve the $1.5 billion overcharge that he asserts. An assertion he has made perhaps hundreds of times as fact over many months and in many local public forums, including this one....
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[Bob Bruhns]

There there, stix. I'm saying that based on comparisons to similar work in similar areas, the advertised cost of this job is utterly exorbitant, being high by about 80%. You apparently don't want these overcosts to be addressed, so you confuse the issue by demanding project management information from me that is somewhat beyond my skill level. Perhaps you should have demanded this sort of detail from the FTA when I exposed their incompetent blundering, but maybe you want the prices to be 80% high for some mysterious reason, and such demands might have had an adverse effect on that bloat.

In any event, my comparisons speak for themselves - the overall Phase II cost per mile is 80% high, and some high-ticket example items (one rail station, five parking garages) are 76% high for the parking garages, and possibly 100% high for the rail station. These are costs that were hidden (redacted) by MWAA, and they were only revealed by the FTA because a supposed 'savings' needed to be displayed in mid-2011.

Never mind that much of that 'savings' could easily evaporate. All Fairfax and Loudoun Counties would have to do, is fail to arrange these jobs, and Fairfax County would then appear to save about 84% of the cost of the rail station and two parking garages, and Loudoun County would appear to save about 95% of the cost of three parking garages. I say 'appear to save', because then that 84 to 95 percent of those costs would revert to the Dulles Partnership, which would then charge them to the Dulles Toll Road, and I am pretty sure Fairfax and Loudoun Counties will be paying those tolls down anyway - dumping those costs, plus interest, onto the county taxpayers, for generations. But County leaders could still take a bow, claiming another 'saving' for failing, and then make us pay for them later. I don't put that past them.

Your idea of charging the Dulles Access Road users for their now free use of the Toll Road is a good one, but much more money than expected will be needed because we will also be deluged with WMATA maintenance and Capital Needs costs, and Rosslyn Tunnel expansion costs, that have not yet been disclosed.

Admit it, stix. The Silver Line is a nightmarish disaster that is now starting to unfold. Some people are already beginning to see the true extent of the usurious-toll nightmare, and there are several more very expensive 'surprises' coming our way.
_________________
Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[Bob Bruhns]

So here we are. MWAA has hyperinflated the cost of this project to at least 1.8 times what it should be, and now it plans to decide who should be the recipients of this overpayment. Furthermore the MWAA Board, which had made no complaint of which I am aware against its own severe misdeeds (until they were noted on May 15, 2012 by the Inspector General of the US DOT), is nevertheless most concerned and most vocal against the seating of new Board members now.

And our so-called 'leaders' and the news media continue to keep several secrets about this job as well - failing to mention the $53 million FTA blunder from July 2011, failing to mention the massively excessive price of Dulles Rail Phase II (or Phase I for that matter), and failing to mention the US DOT financial audit of Dulles Rail Phase II that began in March, 2012.

This situation is very bad indeed.
_________________
Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[Bob Bruhns]

MWAA redacted line item prices in Phase I and Phase II. I found some Dulles Rail Phase II line item prices in the July 3, 2011 FTA White Paper. It said $136 million for the Rt 28 station; later it turned out that our trusty FTA had made a mistake and included the Rt 28 parking garage in that price, which was inappropriate because (1) the price said that it was for the station, and (2) the parking garage was included with the four other Phase II garages, in a different line item. (The FTA had counted the cost of the garage twice - yet neither our leaders, nor our news media, ever mentioned that little $53 million dollar error, to this day.)

This put the Rt 28 station price at $83 million, and the five parking garages, with a total of 8915 parking spaces, at a total of $235.3 million ($26,360 per space), in late July 2011.

These prices were revealed in order to show a 'savings' to the project, because Fairfax and Loudoun Counties would shoulder them. I consider this a false savings, because we're really paying for them either way. The prices should have been brought down to earth. But the numbers looked good on paper, the counties were somehow mollified despite having a heavier burden than before, and the US DOT and the FTA took a bow.

Of that amount,

Fairfax County was responsible for:
the Rt 28 station ($83 million)
the Rt 28 parking garage ($53.5 million, 1949 spaces, $26,372 per space), and
the Herndon-Monroe parking garage ($51.4 million, 2027 spaces, $26,392 per space),
(total $187.9 million),

and Loudoun County was responsible for:
the Rt 606 parking garage ($51.9 million, 1965 spaces, $26,412 per space),
the Rt 772 North parking garage ($37.8 million, 1434 spaces, $26,359 per space), and
the Rt 772 South parking garage ($40.6 million, 1540 spaces, $26,363 per space),
(total $130.3 million).

I did some research on those July 2011 figures, and I found that parking garages should cost more like $15,000 per space here. Some people debate that number, and say that they should cost $17,000 per space, and claim soft costs, etc. But $26,300-odd per space was plainly excessive. And of course the Rt 28 rail station price, (not the $136 million they mistakenly claimed at first, but the $83 million they were really claiming) was about two times what it should be. And our leaders, and the news media, said absolutely NOTHING about the evident overcosts, or of the $53 million FTA blunder.

Meanwhile, things have gotten worse in 2012.

In June 2012, just less than a year after the FTA figures were released, I found an interview on WAMU with Andrew Rountree, the MWAA's Chief Financial Officer.

Eyeing Dulles Toll Road For Silver Line Funding
WAMU, June 17, 2012
Article

MWAA CFO's full response to an inquiry from WAMU from that article:

MWAA Answers DTR Questions
MWAA CFO's full response

The MWAA CFO's document that said that Fairfax County would pay not $189.7 million, but $236 million; and that Loudoun County would pay not $130.3 million, but $168 million. I thought there was a mistake, because the recent 100% preliminary engineering report held the overall costs about steady, maybe a litte lower than earlier estimates. I never expected the county item costs to jump an average of 27%! It took me a while to find that these costs had been quietly jacked up, by quite a bit. And again, as usual, neither our leaders, nor the news media, happened to mention it - all they said was that the project cost dropped a little bit.

This hyerinflation pushed the Loudoun County parking garage costs from an average of $26,382 per space, to an average of $34,015 per space, a 29% increase, to more than two times what they should cost. And going by that percentage increase, the Fairfax County garages must have gone from $26,383 per space to $34,034 per space, for a total of $135.3 million (making the total price for all five Phase II parking garages $168 million + $135.3 million = $303.3 million), and the Rt 28 station therefore must have jumped to $236 million - $135.3 million = $100.7 million - also more than two times what it should cost. This is a very significant increase - why have our leaders and news media not noticed or mentionied it?

In Phase I, MWAA made it very difficult to get a real sense of the overcharges. MWAA acted like price information was a secret, and they redacted it (with big black lines, specifically so that we could not see the prices). And the breakdown of the construction prices was for things like tons of concrete poured, etc, not the cost of this or that building, etc.

Here are the MWAA Phase I reports, with those redactions in them. Take a look - you'll see a whole lot of big black lines covering up line item prices in there.

General page: Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project Design-Build Contract for Phase I
http://www.mwaa.com/dulles/2552.htm

Design-Build Contract (7.87 MB PDF)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/p1dcmexhibits_7_25_08.pdf

Contract Exhibits (10.31 MB PDF)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/p1dcmexhibits_7_25_08.pdf

--------

General page: Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project Phase I Supporting Documents submitted to FTA
http://www.mwaa.com/dulles/2554.htm

Table of Contents (PDF; 1 page, 44KB)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/fta_contents_2_1_08.pdf

Tabs 1A and 1B (PDF; 83 pages, 4.64MB)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/fta_tab1a1b_2_1_08.pdf

Tab 1C (PDF; 87 pages, 5.99MB)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/fta_tab1c_2_1_08.pdf

Tab 2 (PDF; 72 pages, 2.41MB)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/fta_tab2_2_1_08.pdf

Tab 3 (PDF; 276 pages, 19.1MB)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/fta_tab3_2_1_08.pdf

Tab 4 (PDF; 80 pages, 1.11MB)
http://www.mwaa.com/file/fta_tab4_2_1_08.pdf

Of course, with an Inspector General in a new Inspector General position at MWAA, and with two audits being conducted by the Inspector General of US DOT, things might be a little bit different this time. But if some legal trick makes the Phase II contract line item prices some sort of State Secret, like the Phase I contract line item prices were, chances are pretty good that the Billion and a half dollars of excessive cost that I have mentioned, will burden this region for generations.
_________________
Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[Bob Bruhns]

This is very interesting. Atlanta just voted down a 7.2 Billion dollar transit plan referendum.

How tea party and its unlikely allies nixed Atlanta's transit tax
Christian Science Monitor, August 1, 2012
Article
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[demosthenes]

The biggest problem I have with this whole thing is that the airport is not paying their fair share for building the Metro line to Dulles.
It's all on the backs of those using the toll road, local governments, and the federal government.
This is extremely unfair.
The bulk of the funds should be coming from concession fees at the airport, fees added to airline tickets originating or terminating at Dulles, and from the airlines themselves.


http://www.dullesmetro.com/info/faqs.cfm

[stix]

The Silver Line is a Fairfax/Loudoun County commuter line. The Dulles Airport station is but one of 11 stations. One could argue that on the basis of the number of airport commuters vs all the rest, the 'airport' is paying about what it should.. not to say the MWAA could not contribute a bit more by setting tolls on the airport access road, now free.

Most everyone agrees the DTR users are shouldering too large a share of the Silver Line construction. My view is the the Feds, so determined to blow billions on dubious 'high speed rail', should be paying more. Also other funding partners of the Metro system themselves through WMATA (like DC and MD) should be paying into it as well too...
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[Bob Bruhns]

How is DC and Maryland money supposed to come here from WMATA? WMATA is drowning in staggering amounts of deferred maintenance and capital needs, demonstrating either that public transit simply does not produce enough economic benefit to pay for itself, or that the money is easily stolen.

Either way, this is not good for Northern Virginia, where our so-called 'leaders' just very foolishly agreed to pay nearly two times what our Metro extension construction should have cost (see "money is easily stolen" above), and where the People don't seem to know or care about the fiscal and regional disaster that is about to happen here as a result. If the People don't notice more and more cars fleeing from the Toll Road and crowding onto local roads because of rising tolls, they will find out in 2015, when the Dulles Toll Road tolls hit $4.50, and the whole area between the Potomac River and Rt 66 turns into into a wall to wall traffic jam. You think traffic is bad NOW?

Virginia still has to patch the hole in its retirement fund that it ignored when it declared a surplus not long ago, and that's not all, and the federal government will be struggling to borrow more trillions - so guess what, we will have to pay for our Metrorail line! (SURPRISE!!!) And when Fairfax County and probably Loudoun County have to float Billion dollar General Obligation bonds in 2015 or 2016 to get the tolls back down to maybe $2.50, the People will get a reminder in their mortgage payments each month too, for fifty years or so.

If there will be any regional flow of money in the Metro system, money will not be going to Northern Virginia, it will be going away from Northern Virginia.
_________________
Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[demosthenes]