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Residents will get a chance to weigh in on potential toll hikes on the Dulles Toll Road at a public hearing in Ashburn, Va. tonight.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is proposing to double tolls by 2015. For a two-axle vehicle, that means the toll would increase from $2.25 to $2.75 this year, go up to $3.20 in 2014 and reach $4.50 by 2015. The money would be used to support toll road operations and improvements and help pay for the metro rail silver line extension to Dulles airport.
But the rate hike is coming at a time when the authority has been roundly criticized by federal, state and local officials for the expensive junkets many of its members have taken, the way it has awarded no-bid contracts and for the generally non-transparent way it operates.
Tonight's public hearing runs from 5-8 p.m. at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn. Two more hearings have been scheduled for later this month in Reston and McLean.
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