Dulles Greenway is not a private toll road (Was: Private toll roads)

[Declan McCullagh]

On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 07:43:51PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
> If the new toll road is NOT on the orginal right of way, and passes 
> through the various neighborhoods like Herndon, Reston, and Vienna, 
> then I would be very interested in just how they bought up thousands of 
> houses, cut through dozens of surface streets, and generally cut a new 
> swathe through a suburban area.

There are two roads: The Dulles Toll Road, which connects I-66 (near
the Beltway) with Dulles Airport, and the Dulles Greenway, which continues
northwest away from the city to end in Leesburg. We've been talking
about the Greenway.

There's a map here:
http://www.dullesgreenway.com/cgi-bin/dgmap.cfm

I take the Dulles Toll Road whenever I fly out of that airport, but have
only taken the Dulles Greenway once or twice (the only people I know in
the area are north of Leesburg, and it's easier to connect through
Point of Rocks in Maryland). So I'm not really all that familiar with it.

A quick search, though, turns up this, which shows that the Greenway
was a government project accomplished through eminent domain, that it
is run by a private contractor and will return to state control in a
few decades, and that it's subject to continued aggressive regulation
from local governments.

http://www.americancityandcounty.com/ar/government_making_inroads_private/
>On the other side of the country, the Dulles Greenway, a 15-mile
>extension of the Dulles Toll Road, connects the Beltway (I-495)
>around Washington, D.C., with Dulles International Airport... That
>profitability, plus growth in the nearby suburbs, convinced Virginia
>to build the extension. Its DOT, however, decided not to build a
>public road and awarded the franchise to the Toll Road Corporation of
>Virginia (TRCV). The TRCV will operate the Greenway for 40 years,
>after which the road becomes state property... The Greenway,
>meanwhile, is subject to utility-style regulation by the state's
>corporation commission with a target return on equity of 21
>percent... The road also has been subject to extensive
>regulation. For example, Greenway officials wanted to raise the speed
>limit on the road from 55 to 65 miles per hour, an approval process
>that took substantial time and required an act of the Virginia
>legislature. Furthermore, state regulators and lenders have to
>approve toll restructuring.

Not a good example of a privately-owned and privately-built road.

-Declan