Adam Tuss, wtop.com

WASHINGTON – Dulles Toll Road drivers should expect to pay more for their trips — perhaps as soon as next year.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Wednesday began discussing the road’s future toll rates. Board member Frank Conner, finance committee chair for the MWAA, says any new toll rates should be set for at least the next two years.

He also said the authority should follow a recent recommendation on toll rates, outlined in the February MWAA traffic and revenue study.

That recommendation doubles the cost of a one-way trip (meaning drivers use the main road and an exit ramp) to $4.50 next year, and then triples it to $6.75 by 2018.

Toll road revenue is counted on to finance 75 percent of the $2.8 billion second phase of Metrorail’s Silver Line extension — the section that will run from Reston to Dulles International Airport and continue into Loudoun County.

“We want this to be a very deliberate, very transparent process because it does have an impact on a lot of people on a day-to-day basis,” says Conner.

MWAA staff instructed the board that the “rational thing to do” is for the next toll increase to occur in 2013.

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