Rep. Jim Moran (D-8.) holds many of his town halls in accessible, transit-friendly areas like Arlington and Alexandria but the congressman decided to host his latest public meeting on transportation in the belly of the beast, Tysons Corner, July 3.

Standing at the Freddy Mac headquarters, Moran looked out to a crowd of approximately 200 people and said: "I think you know why we are here."

"Tysons Corner is the worst, most notorious choke point for traffic in Northern Virginia. It is the epicenter of what has gone wrong," said Moran.

Members of Moran’s guest panel and some people in the audience, a few of whom wore "Tysons Tunnel" stickers, agreed. Tysons Corner had become a symbol of practically all that was wrong with the United States approach to transit and transportation, said Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Mn.), chair of the transportation committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Most industrialized countries have made huge strides in mass transit in recent years. China has a train that travels at 220 miles per hour and can carry passengers from Beijing to Shanghai – approximately the same distance as from Boston to Richmond – in four hours, said Oberstar.

He added that high-speed trains have allowed people in France to commute over 200 miles daily to and from Paris in a reasonable amount of time. Thirty percent of trips for any purpose in the Netherlands are made by bike.

"What is wrong with us? Are we a third world country?" said Oberstar.

The Minnesota congressman, who has been a representative for over 30 years, said there has always been pushback in the United States when it comes to transit.

Several years ago, the Washington D.C. appropriations committee held up funding for the original construction of Metro until work was started on a new bridge connecting Virginia to Maryland over the Potomac river.

Minneapolis light rail attracted 10 million passengers nine months ahead of its projections but supporters are having difficulty getting more funding to expand the mass transit system, because the federal government keeps shifting its criteria, said Oberstar.

"Everywhere that light rail has been developed, the usage has been tripled," he said.

But the Dulles rail proponents are hitting a similar wall with rail to Dulles Airport and beyond. Oberstar said negotiations over the project – when it appeared as if the federal government might pull its funding – made it clear that the Bush administration was not supportive of the project.

As with light rail in Minneapolis, the federal administration has not used the appropriate criteria to measure and rate the project. He said they deliberately threw out factors like energy consumption and cost to the commuters when evaluating Dulles rail and other projects.

If those benefits could have been left in the financial analysis of the project, the cost effectiveness of the Dulles rail project – which has been criticized for its "medium low" rating – could be higher, said Oberstar.

Additional factors that should have been part of the Dulles rail project analysis may also have lead the federal government to conclude that tunnel option was cost effective. Currently, the federal, state and local governments are pursuing an "above ground" option because the tunnel option was deemed too expensive and would stall the project significantly.

"You should have a tunnel under 495 and that lets you have real transit-oriented development. … A tunnel could be built for a cost similar to the above-ground option.," said Oberstar.

The Minnesota congressman said he would be willing to engage in a "conversation" about how to pursue the tunnel but the option would have to talked about as the above-ground track proposal continued to move forward. He and Moran would not want to jeopardize the aboveground rail proposal in the hopes of getting a tunnel.

"The question of above or below. This is the symbol of doing it right the first time," said Scott Monett, president of Tysons Tunnel, an advocacy group pushing for the tunnel option.

Many members of the audience questioned what funds the federal government could divert from several places – ranging from the Iraq War to the Interstate 66 widening project – for Dulles rail.

Oberstar agreed that money going to Iraq’s infrastructure development could be spent in the United States.

"We are building roads, tunnels, sewage systems, and bridges. We are just not building them here in this county," said Oberstar.

He did not agree with a suggestion to take revenue from the Metropolitan Airports Authority, which is supposed to manage the Dulles rail project, for the metro extension. Resident Brenda Balke wanted to know why the local airports, who will make money off the metro, could not contribute more money to the project.

A federal law prohibits money raised at airports to be used for federal purposes other than the airport.

"We have airport and airway funds for that purpose," said Oberstar.

Oberstar said it could also be difficult to transfer highway funds – such as those set aside for widening of Interstate 66 inside the beltway – to a transit project.

"Shifting dollars from highway to transit? In this administration, that anathema," said Oberstar.