Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport ( WMATA station ) | Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Station

Pressured by the previous year's Congressional action, the Reagan administration sought to provide WMATA with $ 250 million a year for four years to expand the system to 89. 5 miles ( 144 km ), a plan which would not fund construction of the system beyond the proposed Southern Avenue Station.

* WMATA: Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Station

WMATA made a press release detailing changes on July 26 in anticipation of the release.

This act was amended on January 3, 1980 by Public Law 96-184, " The National Capital Transportation Amendment of 1979 " ( also known as the Stark-Harris Act ), which authorized additional funding of $ 1. 7 billion to permit the completion of of the system as provided under the terms of a full funding grant agreement executed with WMATA in July 1986, which required 25 % to be paid from local funds.

On July 1, 2010, the WMATA Board was able to activate a $ 886 million contract for 428 new series 7000 Metro cars to serve Dulles.

In October 1985, WMATA awarded the $ 24. 9 million contract to excavate the tunnel between the Waterfront and Navy Yard stations to Harrison Western Corp. WMATA's board awarded a $ 41. 5 million contract for the construction of the Anacostia Station to Kiewit Construction Co. in June 1985, and said the station would open in 1990.

WMATA needed $ 2 billion in construction funds, but Congress was threatening to cut WMATA's funding by up to 26 percent to $ 184. 5 million a year for four years.

In November 1986, WMATA awarded a $ 36. 2 million contract to Mergentime Corp. to build the Navy Yard Station.

A month later, WMATA awarded a $ 19. 5 million contract to excavate a tunnel from the Navy Yard Station to the tunnels being built under the Anacostia River.

In January 1988, WMATA awarded a $ 179. 1 million contract to build the Green Line from Fort Totten to Greenbelt, and a $ 6. 9 million contract to complete the Waterfront station.

Almost two years later, WMATA broke ground on the Suitland, Naylor Road, Southern Avenue, and Congress Heights stations, a $ 900 million project which would complete the final 6. 5 miles ( 10. 5 km ) of the originally-planned 103-mile ( 165. 7 km ) Metrorail system in late 1999.

To help mediate the impact of the total fare increase on Anacostia residents, WMATA reduced basic bus fares for many routes in the area from $ 1 to 35 cents.

Two months after the Anacostia Station opened, WMATA said that a study of bus and rail ridership showed that the unaltered bus routes were costing the transit agency $ 200, 000 a month in lost rail fares.

The Arlington County government, which could have made the change, demurred — the price was estimated at $ 400, 000 — and WMATA subsequently declined to rename the station on April 19, 2001.

In response to a demand for immediate repayment of a $ 43 million debt, WMATA sought a temporary restraining order against the KBC Bank Group.

In 2009, WMATA issued two new series of municipal bonds bringing its total outstanding bonds to $ 390. 9 million, as of June 30, 2010.

In addition, WMATA is receiving nearly $ 202 million in grants from the federal government to fund American Recovery and Reinvestment Act projects.

The Compact prohibits WMATA from paying board members However, Maryland pays its voting board members $ 20, 000 per year and Virginia pays $ 50 per meeting.

However, only 35 such requests were made by private bus companies, and WMATA then reversed its decision, opening up 3, 400 spaces to private vehicles.

Prince George's County officials threatened to sue Metro as well as block all further construction spending in March 1985 unless WMATA agreed to use its existing funds to build the Green Line into their county.

The first WMATA budget which contained funds for operating the Green Line was proposed in December 1989.

In November 2008, after years of delays, WMATA announced that customers would have the ability to add funds to their SmarTrip cards online by September 2009, but that deadline was missed.

Residents and D. C. government officials asked WMATA to build stations at Congress Heights and Southern Avenue in order to promote economic development and provide service to St. Elizabeths Hospital and Greater Southeast Community Hospital.

WMATA officials reacted in June by stretching out construction of the Green Line and Anacostia station to 1991.

WMATA officials admitted that fares for most Anacostia residents would rise an average of 50 percent, and that Anacostia residents would be forced to pay more and travel farther to access the services ( such as doctors ) and shopping that most District residents can readily access.

Prior to this date, a decision was made by WMATA officials not to allow private automobiles to park at this station in order to allow more than 1100 charter buses to use the parking.

WMATA said that it had so little money it could not fund 16 critical small construction projects, among them security gates at the Navy Yard and Waterfront stations and parts for escalators at the seven new Green Line stations in D. C. and Prince George's County.

WMATA said that the problems would delay the Green Line's opening until at least the late spring of 1991.

To make up the lost revenue, WMATA said that it would run only two-car trains ( the shortest on the system ) on the Green Line during slow periods weekdays and evenings and on Sundays beginning in June 1992.

By then WMATA had answered negative publicity by adopting a policy of first issuing warnings to juveniles, and arresting them only after three violations within a year.

By 1966, WMATA and Arlington County planners had agreed " to realign the rapid transit through high-density commercial-office-apartment areas in the vicinity of Wilson Boulevard instead of the freeway's median between the river and Glebe Road.

By 1969, WMATA had decided on the current routing and stations, except for the extension beyond Rockville to Shady Grove.

WMATA announced in November 1978 that it had secured funding to build the Green Line from Gallery Place to Waterfront and that construction was nearly complete on this portion of the line, but that funding did not exist to push the line from Waterfront to Anacostia.

Mergentime / Perini Joint Venture, the contractor working on the stations, had violated its contract with WMATA by reducing the workforce on the project, not meeting project deadlines, and permitting unsafe working conditions to persist.

In June 1991, WMATA discovered that the District of Columbia had dumped 426, 000 tons of possibly hazardous incinerator bottom ash in an unused exposed culvert along the subway's potential path near St. Elizabeth's Hospital between 1977 and 1989.

WMATA admitted that although riders had made the switch from bus to rail, the lower ridership numbers were due to the recession and not because of continuing downtown bus service in the area.

Even though significant numbers of bus riders in Anacostia had switched to Metrorail by February 1992, WMATA nonetheless began running two-rather than four-car trains on the Green Line on Sundays and during slow periods in order to close a revenue shortfall.

KBC claimed that the WMATA was in technical default of a contract following the collapse of AIG, which had guaranteed the loan that KBC made to WMATA in 2002.

WMATA had 14 similar lease agreements with other financial institutions when the KBC case went to trial.

Increasing construction costs and financing problems ( caused primarily by the inability of local governments to contribute their share of Metro's funding ) led WMATA to consider whether to shift the Green Line to a more southerly route along Wheeler Road SE to terminate near Rosecroft Raceway.

WMATA also proposed spending money almost three times faster up-front to accelerate its construction schedule, a move which would be more than compensated for by savings in out-years.

As the opening of the Green Line to Anacostia neared, WMATA proposed halving the number of bus routes traveling between Anacostia and the National Archives Building downtown — forcing riders to take the more expensive Metrorail and requiring many riders to walk several blocks to their destination ( rather than the " virtually door-to-door service " they then enjoyed ).

By September 1990, WMATA was also confronting more frequent breakdowns in its existing, aging rail car fleet, which heightened the urgency to buy more cars.