Dulles Toll Road

On July 26, 2005, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) received an unsolicited conceptual proposal in accordance with the Public Private Transportation Act of 1995 (PPTA) from the Dulles Corridor Mobility Consortium. The consortium, under the conceptual proposal named the Dulles Corridor Mobility Initiative (DCMI), sought a concession agreement to collect tolls, operate, maintain, and improve the Dulles Toll Road and Dulles Connector. VDOT reviewed the proposal and determined that it met all the legal and policy requirements for initial review as set out in §56-558 and §56-560 and the current PPTA implementation guidelines. The Department published a notice accepting the proposal and invited other private firms to submit competing proposals on July 28, 2005. The closing date for the competition period was October 28, 2005. Four competing proposals were received from:

• Cintra USA, lead by Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S. A.
• Dulles Express, lead by the Franklin L. Haney Company, LLC
• Dulles SmartLink, lead by Transurban and Goldman Sachs & Co.
• Dulles to D.C. Loop, lead by Virginia Mobility Associates, LLC

The original and competing proposals were evaluated by VDOT as part of the quality control review phase of the PPTA procurement process. The final result and decision of the quality control review was that four of the five conceptual proposals be advanced to the Independent Review Panel (IRP) procurement phase. The four advancing proposals are Cintra, DCMI, Dulles Express, and Dulles SmartLink. The Dulles to D.C. Loop proposal submitted by the Virginia Mobility Associates will not advance to the next phase.

The four advancing proposals are now in the Independent Review Panel (IRP) of the procurement process. In this phase, the Secretary of Transportation will name the panel members, to include local and state transportation officials, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB), the academic community and others as appropriate, to review and make a recommendation on proposals to advance further in the process. This process has been temporarily delayed while the Secretary reviews the proposal from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) which was received and is being considered independent of the PPTA process. This proposal is for MWAA to assume responsibility for the operation of certain facilities in the Dulles corridor. The Secretary will seek to issue further directions regarding the continuance of the IRP review on or by March 22, 2006.

On March 27, 2006, Governor Timothy M. Kaine announced an agreement with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority for it to assume responsibility for the Dulles Toll Road and completing the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. See the "News" section of this webpage for the text of this announcement.