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I have to agree with @Billy Bob on this one. Yes, it will help with much of the planned development getting going. And that's a good thing.

But it won't be much of an improvement as a mover of people. Despite any new development, most of Columbia Pike will remain residential and local commerce - denser and better than now, but still mostly those two.

Most of the residents will still need to commute elsewhere for work, and this is where the streetcar provides very little gain over the current set-up. It will be just as likely to get stuck in traffic as anything else, and will not provide a faster journey for commuters in any way. As development increases traffic on the pike, it will slow the streetcar just as much as it will slow buses and cars. Yes, a few more people will ride the streetcar than a bus, which will slightly slow the growth of car traffic. But not much.

The problem overall, as I see it, is that Arlington only proposed streetcars and a couple lesser options - buses. If it had proposed and worked out an option better than a mixed-traffic streetcar, I would be much more enthusiastic.

I don't know exactly what that would look like - perhaps LRT that ran in traffic in some cases (in those areas where the road is too narrow for anything else) but ran separately in those wider areas (like areas where there currently are street-facing parking lots or where building fronts are set back from the street - a significant portion of the length of the pike is like that). This, plus some add-ons like signal priority, would greatly assist the LRT to be more than just a bus on tracks that's at the mercy of traffic like everything else.

I'm also annoyed by the addition of overhead wires for the streetcar (right after a project, currently on-going I believe, put utilities underground on the pike). It adds to the visual clutter and doesn't look all that attractive, though I guess that's a minor quibble. The real problem is the lack of even partial lane/grade separation on any portion of the route. This thing is going to be so slow that it won't take many commuter cars off the road.

by Nick81 on Jun 18, 2012 3:21 pm • link • report