The Quest for Non-Highway Transit Projects

Puentes makes the argument for why metropolitan areas will go it alone for the sake of its citizens: "Clearly, some kind of competitive process is warranted. However, the current bureaucratic rigmarole is so torturous, it is no wonder that some metropolitan areas are forgoing the federal process completely and funding new transit segments on their own."

It is vastly important for local, state and the federal government, along with the private sector to work cooperatively, rather than against one another, for the sake of these individual economies, which are the engines of prosperity for the nation at-large.

"The Dulles dust-up is not a unique disease, but rather a symptom of a much larger national transportation illness. As hard as it may be to think of a $5 billion mega-transportation project as a “microcosm” of anything, right now that is exactly how one should consider the Dulles rail controversy."

"The disagreements about the planned 23-mile Metrorail line through Tysons Corner in Virginia, continuing to Dulles International Airport — stalled now due to ideological differences over the appropriate federal role in transportation — are a subset of a larger battle taking place."