Victor Salame and his wife Nabila have gone to lengths to make their backyard a pleasant hangout. They recently had a screened-in sitting room, complete with flat-screen television, built behind their house and a high-end hot tub installed nearby.

However, intruding upon their outdoor bliss is the constant rumble of traffic from the Dulles Access Road, whose interchange with Route 123 is only about 100 feet from their house. In the coming years, Metro trains will traverse the interchange, leaving the access road and heading down Chain Bridge Road into Tysons Corner.

No sound walls are located on this stretch of the road, nor are any planned, other than 6-foot-high "parapet walls" along the coming rail.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Fairfax County and Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) officials got a chance to hear the noise around the Salames’ house firsthand, as they met at the home with about 40 residents of the surrounding neighborhood.

"When we have the snow machines on [Route] 267, we can hear the noise in our house. We can feel it," Victor Salame said, adding that trains would soon add the squeal of metal on metal to the din, as they rounded the curve over the interchange. "What can we do to extend the noise barrier to here?"

The problem, said Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova (D-At-large) is that Virginia, not the county, owns the road, and state money for such projects has dried up as the stalemate in Richmond over transportation funding continues.

When the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) took over the Rail to Dulles project, it took ownership of the Dulles Toll Road, but not the so-called Dulles Access Road that extends Route 267 from the Beltway past the Salames’ neighborhood to Interstate 66, Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville) explained. The airports authority promised to build 3 to 5 miles of sound walls along the corridor as part of the deal but does not want to build the walls on an stretch of the road it doesn’t own, Foust said, adding that no policy required noise abatement other than parapet walls along rails.

"From our perspective, there’s nothing we can promise you," he said to the residents, adding that the county board would do what it could to lobby the state and MWAA for sound walls. "It’s going to take a lot of long, hard work," Foust said.

The county noise limit of an average of 55 decibels does not appear to apply to the road, since it is state-owned. Victor Salame said the noise at his house had been measured at 62 decibels. "We’re Fairfax County, and yet VDOT is in our front yard," he said.

Foust said State Sen. Janet Howell (D-32) and Del. Jim Scott (D-53), the area’s state representatives, were "very concerned" about the problem and were adding language to appropriations bills that would dedicate money to sound walls along the length of the access road when such money became available.

Scott was debating in Falls Church at the time of the meeting, and Bulova said Howell was in Richmond. Bulova said she hoped to meet with the residents and their state representatives to talk about the problem at some point.

McLean Citizens Association (MCA) President Rob Jackson said his organization had been working on sound walls on other roads in the area and would help the residents assemble and lobby to resolve the problem. "We need to keep working on it and looking for a solution. We can’t make any promises," Jackson said. "I’ll commit for the organization that we’ll work with you."

Staffers from Howell’s and U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf’s (R-10) offices said their bosses would also fight for noise mitigation on the access road, and VDOT senior projects manager Larry Cloyed told the group, "We work and will continue to work with your elected officials."

Resident Fouad Khoury warned that the community expected to see action taken and had the resources to "make a big sound" if they didn’t feel enough was being done. "We invested in this community. We pay our taxes," Khoury said, asking what steps officials could take in the immediate future.

Bulova and Foust said they would help residents write a letter to Howell, Scott, Wolf and U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8) formally requesting assistance, and Victor Salame said they would make that letter a petition.

Foust said he was glad to see the neighborhood organizing for the cause. "There’s no one in the state of Virginia that doesn’t want you to have sound walls, I guarantee you," Foust said, noting that the problem was only a lack of funding.