Traffic
Highway departments set on HOT lanes
VDOT and the Commonwealth Transportation Board have made up their minds to add high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes to I-395. Arlington and Alexandria, through which the lanes will pass, aren't so sure, and claim VDOT hasn't provided answers to their questions about the impact or benefits of the lanes. As a result, they are taking formal steps to oppose the plan.
Photo from Washington State Department of Transportation.
Meanwhile, VDOT's project manager Young Ho Chang showed a typical blindness to transportation solutions other than more lanes. "Wouldn't it be better for people in the inner jurisdictions to have people in outer jurisdictions to be in a carpool or transit?" he asked. "That's what this project has been designed to encourage."
Actually, it would be better for the inner jurisdictions, the outer jurisdictions, the state as a whole, the environment and our society if Virginia's transportation policy promoted other means of mobility besides more cars driving more miles. HOT lanes might encourage more carpooling than regular lanes, but also far more driving than spending the same amount of money on transit or helping people live closer to work. Meanwhile, Virginia is still under-investing in VRE, which could potentially move a lot more people with less land, less energy, and less pollution.
There's also no real reason to believe HOT lanes will accomplish what highway boosters claim. California's SR-91 HOT lanes only ever made a profit because they replaced an existing median, which made construction extremely cheap. Beltway lanes will cost more money and bring in less. They're a better alternative to just adding lanes, period, but still cost money, increase driving and pollution, and move mobility in the wrong direction.
Maryland, too, is all hot under the collar for HOT lanes. Limited housing opportunities in western Montgomery County are pushing more people into Frederick County, and instead of adding housing closer to jobs and beefing up rail transit like the MARC line to Frederick, Maryland SHA is set on adding more car capacity to I-270 one way or another.
"We were asked to take a look at ways that we can put improvements out in the corridor, but find some way to pay for those improvements, and ETLs is what's come through from MDOT," consultant Brian Horn told the Frederick News-Post. The way he describes this makes it sound like MDOT's a sausage machine, where you put a transportation problem in one end, turn the crank, and a recommendation to widen freeways comes out the other end.
There's an alternative. We already have a rail network that could be transporting an order of magnitude more people than it does today. When discussing Berliner's suggested Red Line stop, some commenters asked about creating an express Red Line. We could have one that reaches planned new development from Gaithersburg to Fort Belvoir, and reaches Frederick, Baltimore, Richmond and Charlottesville. All we have to do is fully exploit the existing commuter rail infrastructure or even expand it further.
Building out the commuter rail system contains challenges, which would cost money, but so do new lanes on 395 and 270. Sadly, VDOT and MDOT look at the region's mobility, see a lot of traffic, and conclude that we need more lanes. In VDOT's case, they seem to see the inner jurisdictions as obstacles to clearing more room for outer jurisdictions' cars instead of as partners in a better system. The future of our region depends on some more creativity from the state transportation chiefs and their top people, or the political courage of regional leaders.
| 16 comments | — tags: Beltway widening, HOT lanes, I-270, MARC, Maryland, SHA, Smart Growth, VDOT, Virginia, VRE |
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by Cavan on May 8, 2009 1:57 pm
by Transport. on May 8, 2009 2:19 pm
by RichardatCourthouse on May 8, 2009 2:30 pm
I also HATE the idea that a private corporation is going to take away a road that is available to anyone in the off hours (as long as you are going in the right direction) and going to make you pay for that option. I see more crowded main lanes in the future.
by NikolasM on May 8, 2009 3:20 pm
Here are some suggestions for VDOT: Build metro lines along the following cooridors:
* Franconia-Springfield-Pentagon along I-395.
* Glebe Rd from Ballston to King St.
* Franconia-Springfield to Dulles along the Fairfax County Parkway, possibly with an extra piece along 123 from 7100 to the Silver Line somewhere near Reston.
* Extend the yellow line to Ft Belvoir/Lorton.
* And while you're at it, extend the blue line to Woodbridge, and then make a new line along the PW Parkway through Manassas to Leesburg, along US-15 or so.
Yes, I know, we here @ GGW hate building metro lines in the median of freeways, but here's the deal. VDOT has the right of way, so NIMBY has less of a chance. 7100 was gonna be DC's second beltway, remember? Furthermore, extending metro down to PW county, would allow VDOT to kill VRE a bit more, which they can't object to either. They love doing that. Last, building these lines will allow Arlington, Fairfax and PW county to redevelop all the suburban sprawl along these routes. I see a triple win situation. Now we only need convince Senator Boxer to ARRA us a couple of billion, and we're going!
by Jasper on May 8, 2009 3:34 pm
Will workers continue to commute extended distances by personal vehicles to their work sites, say, 15 years from now? The current trend is turning against lengthy commutes. Will enough drivers pay the steady rising congestion tolls to make these ventures worthwhile? How will these roads and HOT lanes perform when heavy-rail transit begins to reach the outer suburbs?
With HOT lanes, however, and why they seem to be the current fad in road building is that the stakeholders aren't states and counties, but private investment. The state of Virginia is taking on little, if any, risk in its HOT lane deals. But these lanes, while considered quasi-public facilities, are nevertheless de facto private roads on which we the public will have to pay to drive on.
by InArlington on May 8, 2009 4:25 pm
This is actually a very important point that many underestimate. All these toll lanes will be under the "jurisdiction" of private non-democratic entities, which means that the public has no say in them anymore. Obviously, toll-road owners will NIMBY any change in the future to their cash-cow...
Hmmm, perhaps NIMBY isn't the correct term. NOMTR? Not-on-my-toll-road?
by Jasper on May 8, 2009 4:58 pm
1. scrapping all highways for metro + bike trails and parkland
2. commuter taxes that rise as residence and office distance increases used as the only source of highway funding
Yes its fantasy for car-loving suburbanites, but a man has to dream on a Friday.
by Wayan on May 8, 2009 5:36 pm
We have this already: the fuel tax. Use more, pay more.
by Douglas Willinger on May 8, 2009 7:49 pm
We could eliminate the problem of long commutes by eliminating work altogether!
by ah on May 8, 2009 8:22 pm
by Douglas Willinger on May 8, 2009 8:25 pm
Neither can you have people live close to their work, if it is the city's policy to mostly build high-end apartments complexes as neighborhood "revitalization".
@ Douglas: The fuel tax is not nearly high enough to influence people's behavior. Americans think that around $4/gal is where the pain barrier is. A quick look in Europe shows that even countries with $7/gal and wonderful transit systems have horrible congestion and environmental problems.
@ah&doug: I don't mind work. I do mind the economy ... tanking.
by Jasper on May 8, 2009 9:49 pm
by jnb on May 9, 2009 8:40 am
I would love for VDOT to start building the lines I suggested and hence push DDOT and MDOT to follow. MDOT is druling all over the HOT lanes, while it's always been Maryland that blocked building a much needed second further-out beltway. Virginia has its part ready: It's the Fairfax County Parkway. With a wide median for future metro use. And a bike path (ok, it's ugly, but it's there). It's Maryland here that doesn't want to do anything. They don't want anything west around DC over US-15, and upgrading MD-310 to interstate is also verboten.
Shockingly to some, it's conservative red Virginia that's actually leading this area in transit. Both in transit and roads. Not hip DC, and neither Maryland.
The only problem Virginia has is that "real Virginia" doesn't want to give "Yankee Virginia" its tax money back, so we can can fix our transportation problems here.
And that VDOT likes to build roads more than rail. But that's what we have GGW for.
Last, this website is called "Greater Greater Washington", not "downtown DC only". IMHO, Greater Washington is everything between Germantown, Baltimore, Bowie/Annapolis, Woodbridge/Quantico, Manassas and Leesburg.
by Jasper on May 9, 2009 3:01 pm
That appears to be the case in this region, but that's not the case elsewhere. For example, tolls from the HO/T lanes on I-394 in Minneapolis help fund express bus service along the corridor, while tolls from the future HO/T lanes on I-35W in the same city will help fund BRT operations along that corridor.
by Froggie on May 10, 2009 8:05 pm
I'd take the bus to work, but it takes longer and I have too many places to visit during the day. Once we have more pervasive videoconferencing...
by Matthew McKnight on May 15, 2009 8:58 am