Arlington’s political leaders have already made it clear they intend to fight the proposed property rights amendment in the next General Assembly session. In the meantime, they are working hard to come up with additional reasons for the assembled worthies to vote against the measure. One of the newer entries? The potential threat the amendment would pose to the trolley car line Arlington and Fairfax intend to run along the Columbia Pike, and specifically, the amendment’s provisions to compensate property owners for lost profits and access:
Exactly how the phrases “lost profits” and “lost access” would be defined would be left up to the General Assembly, should the constitutional amendment be sent to voters and be approved. But it could, potentially, mean problems for governments engaged in any public-works effort, especially one as big as the five-mile, quarter-billion-dollar streetcar line the Arlington and Fairfax governments want to run down Columbia Pike, as well as other big-ticket transportation efforts.
Facing claims for lost business by owners of retail and commercial properties could “cause a huge adverse effect on the county’s budget,” officials said in the report. “Urgently needed transportation projects and traffic-circulation adjustments would either not be initiated, be delayed or be scrapped.”
Yes, there could be “huge adverse” effects on the county’s budget. But I suggest the far greater threat to the county’s fiscal health is the propsed trolley line itself. As Tim Wise informs us, the trolley is now at least $100 million over its projected costs:
The five-mile Columbia Pike streetcar line will run from Pentagon City to the Skyline area of Fairfax, and cost between $242 million and $261 million, according to “a new, more detailed analysis.” In 2007, officials pegged the cost at about $161 million.
“Inflation, an increase in the scope of the proposed project, additional engineering requirements, and federal requirements for higher contingency funding and escalation accounted for the increase in projected costs,” the county said in a press release. “The $50 million per-mile cost now estimated for the proposed streetcar project is comparable to the costs of similar projects across the nation.”
Underestimating transit construction costs is nothing new, and is, if anything, endemic to the craft.
Some may give credit to the Arlington planners for raising concerns about possible property rights lawsuits. Those costs should, indeed, be taken into account. But when the trolley project’s costs are rising significantly before a spade of dirt is turned, let alone an amendment passed enhancing property owner’s rights, the fears are misplaced.
But if the trolley example doesn’t sell in Richmond, the locals have created ample back-up:
In a four-page, single-spaced list of concerns assembled by county staff, a worst-case scenario is laid out in which county officials face the potential of having to pay property owners compensation for everything from street festivals and emergency water and sewer repairs to new traffic signals . . . even SWAT-team activity.
They included snow removal in the list, too.
But please — pay no attention to the skyrocketing costs of the planned trolley line. The real threat to this project and just about everything else a clever local bureaucrat can imagine is compensating property owners.
