MyMetroStop.com

With the battle over federal funding for the first phase of the Silver Line to Dulles behind them, proponents of the Metrorail extension have to scale another mountain: getting Fairfax County landowners along the second phase to agree to tax themselves.

Fairfax officials want to raise more than $300 million in the second phase — an 11-mile stretch from Reston to the Dulles Greenway — by taxing the landowners within a special district, the same way the county raised money for the first phase. Fairfax also expects that it will need more than $100 million from general revenue.

Although major landowners support the idea, the total involvement of property holders in the area is far from the 51 percent threshold of property values needed to form the district. Under state law, only landowners can initiate a special assessment.

If the landowners do not agree to tax themselves, the rail line’s Phase 2 will still be built, but stations at Reston Town Center, Herndon and Route 28 won’t. The county will cut those stations so it can afford its share of the rail project.

“I’ve been working on this for six years,” said Jeff Fairfield, vice president of the Western Alliance for Rail to Dulles, a group of dozens of property owners trying to write a tax district petition. “I don’t think this can go on too much longer without an outcome one way or the other.”

Fairfield, who represents Launders Charitable Trust, which owns about 15 acres near the proposed station at Route 28, says eliminating three stations because property owners didn’t want to pay for them is an “unacceptable outcome.”

But even the Western Alliance’s members — the most committed landowners, who represent about 30 percent of more than $8 billion in value along the corridor — are not ready yet to start a tax district petition.

If holders of 51 percent of the value of properties in the district approve, then all landowners would be taxed at no more than 22 cents per $100 in assessed value. That’s slightly lower than the 25 cents landowners in the Phase 1 district are charged.

After years of intense debate — and the near death of the project in January 2008 — the federal government earlier this month formally cut a check for $900 million, allowing construction of the first phase to begin.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is managing the project, does not need federal funding for the second phase, which is expected to receive money from Dulles Toll Road revenue, Fairfax County, Loudoun County and the airports authority.

The taxing district for the first phase, from Tysons Corner to Wiehle Avenue in Reston, has already paid $100 million toward its $400 million share. Loudoun does not plan a taxing district for its approximately $240 million portion of the rail extension.

The main sticking point over the Phase 2 taxing district is that current zoning does not allow the kinds of mixed-use projects that developers envision near the stations.

Although Fairfield said no one is making more density a precondition for the district, landowners are not convinced that county politicians will agree to change the zoning near stations. Last spring, more than 20 landowners requested new zoning for their properties near the proposed stations. The planning board deferred a decision because there were so many proposals.

If Western Alliance for Rail members finish refining the petition language and sign it in the next two months, those landowners will begin lobbying hundreds of other landowners along the line.

“This is not easy,” Fairfield said. “In this economic environment, it’s doubly challenging.”

One holdout, Chris Walker, is trying to rally others to his side. Walker, who holds ownership interests in several Reston office parks totaling about 320,000 square feet, started the Dulles Corridor Users Group. He also is part of the Phase 1 tax district, where he has an interest in partnerships that have paid $700,000 in taxes for rail so far.

Walker thinks a rail line to Dulles is a terrible idea, cost-ineffective and slow. Including time at stops, Metro runs at about 35 mph. Walker believes a better alternative is adding lanes along Interstate 66 and the Dulles Toll Road.

“It makes no sense to build any more heavy rail, particularly in the suburbs,” he said.

But Walker is not confident he can persuade half the property owners along the line to oppose the district. “These people are ignorant,” he said. “They’ve been told rail is manna from heaven.”

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ireland

Think Ireland Drinks the Most Guinness? Think Again

IrishCentral.com

March 17, 2009

Think you know all there is to know about the Emerald Isle? Ponder these 10 trivia tidbits from Irish Central while you’re celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day.

Your extensive knowledge will surely impress that lovely lass at the other end of the bar. Or at the very least, your friends.

Technically, It Is an Offense to Be Drunk in Public in Ireland

This has to be one of the least enforced laws in the history of any legal system. If the letter of the law were to be enforced in this area, half the county would have to be incarcerated every weekend — but it is indeed true. Regulations introduced last year allow the police to issue on-the-spot fines for anyone caught being drunk in a public police In Ireland.

In reality, however, the police are generally pretty happy for you to get as hammered as you want, as long as you aren’t bothering anyone else, and aren’t in any immediate danger of hurting yourself. So drink up! (But do it safely.)

An Irishman Founded the Argentinean Navy

William Brown, who was born in Co. Mayo, is acknowledged as the founder of the Argentinean navy, and was also an important leader in the Argentinean struggle for independence from Spain.

His family left for Philadelphia around 1786, when he was nine. He started off seafaring as a cabin boy, and ended up fighting in the Napoleonic wars, where he was captured as a prisoner of war. Then he escaped the Germans, before eventually ending up Montevideo, Uruguay, where he became a sea trader, and later ended up founding the Argentinean navy, which was involved in a war against Spain.

Today there is a statue of Brown in his hometown of Foxford, Co. Mayo, which was unveiled in 2007, the 150th anniversary of his death; in Argentina, where he is regarded as a hero, there are two towns, around 1,000 streets and 500 statues, a city and a few football clubs, named after him.

Only 2 Members of U2 Were Born in Ireland

David Howell Evans, more commonly known as The Edge, was born in London, to Welsh parents, Garvin and Gwenda Evans, who moved to Malahide in Dublin when The Edge was one year old. Adam Clayton, U2′s bassist, was born in Oxfordshire, England. His family moved to Malahide in Dublin when he was five, and he became childhood friends with The Edge. Only Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were actually born in Dublin.

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The Street on Which You Will Find the British Embassy in Tehran Is Named After an Irishman

The street on which you will find the British Embassy in Tehran is named after an Irishman.

In 1981, the death of Bobby Sands, the leader of the IRA hunger strikers, brought the world’s attention on the seemingly intractable conflict in Northern Ireland. Two years before, the Iranian revolution brought the Ayatollah Khomeini into power in Iran. Presumably to annoy the British government , or perhaps as a token of solidarity with the hunger strikers (depending on your perspective), the Iranian government changed the street on which the British Embassy is located, from “Churchill Boulevard” (after the British prime minister) to “Bobby Sands Street.” Pedram Moallemian, an Iranian student who was involved in renaming the street, wrote, “The larger victory, however, was when we discovered the embassy had been forced to change their mailing address and all their printed material to reflect a side door address in order to avoid using Bobby’s name anywhere.”

Up Until Around the Early 1990s, Ireland Had a Low Per Capita Consumption of Alcohol

Obviously whenever the word “Irish” comes up, “drinking” is never far behind. And it is true that today, Ireland’s alcohol consumption, which has fallen in recent years, is still very high by international standards.

A survey in 2006, for example, found that the Irish spend a higher proportion of their income than any other country in Europe, and also found that the Irish were the worst binge drinkers in Europe. So the recent evidence certainly supports the old Irish drunkard stereotype. But prior to Ireland becoming a wealthy country, its alcohol consumption per population was actually quite moderate: throughout the 20th century in Ireland, there was a high level of alcohol abstinence, as this is a trait more commonly associated with Protestant countries.

But as the Catholic Church saw its moral authority decline toward the end of the 20th century, and as the country became wealthier, the Irish became to drink a lot more — finally earning themselves the stereotype that has been fixed to them for so long. One likely reason the Irish had earned themselves this stereotype of being heavy drinkers was because of their immigrants: no doubt to drown out the pain of being dislocated from their home country, Irish immigrants in the U.K. and the U.S. tended to be big drinkers.

A Hospital in Belfast Is a World Leader in Kneecap Reconstruction

God knows, there have been many a kneecap that has had to have been reconstructed in Northern Ireland over the last few decades. (Shooting people in the kneecaps was a favored way for Republican and loyalist paramilitaries to control their own neighborhoods.) During the Troubles, the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast had one of the top trauma units in Europe. At one point as many as 100 victims of “limb executions” were being treated by the hospital every year, whose advances included external “limb scaffolding” that enables partial healing for bone damage too severe for reconstruction.

Ireland Has the Fourth Largest Stadium in Europe

Dublin’s Croke Park, the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association, is the fourth largest stadium in Europe: since its redevelopment in 2005, and with a capacity of 82,300, only four venues in Europe are bigger: Barcelona’s Camp Nou, Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu, Milan’s Stadio San Siro and London’s Wembley. Up until 2007, rugby and soccer were not allowed to be played in Croke park by the GAA, a rule that was relaxed when the main soccer and rugby stadium, Landsdown Road, was closed for renovation.

In the Summer of 2007, It Rained in Ireland for 40 Days Straight

Even by Irish standards, this was a very, very wet summer. By August 24, it had rained in Ireland for 40 days — fulfilling an Irish proverb that says if it should rain on St. Swithin’s day (July 15), it will continue to rain every day for the next 40. Usually, at least an Irish summer will give at least a few weeks of sunshine and a break from the rain — at which time the feel good factor in the country goes sky high, for the sheer novelty value of sunshine. But not so, the summer of ’07.

Playboy Was Banned in Ireland Until 1995

That’s right — in 1995 although you could get Playboy TV, you couldn’t get the magazine, which was banned under the country’s censorship laws.

More Guinness Is Sold in Nigeria Than in Ireland

That’s right: Ireland is the third largest market for Guinness. Nigeria is at second, and the U.K. is the first.

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