Yesterday, we discussed the BRT proposal from the Transportation Planning Board that would apply for a stimulus grant to construct a beginning network of Bus Rapid Transit routes in the region. Dan posted in the comments that the committee had already expanded the map to contain a variety of corridors, which they will then whittle down to an initial network for the stimulus grant application.

Here’s the newer map:

Click to enlarge (PDF)

They also published a geographically accurate map and a matrix comparing the corridors. The matrix already lists the current bus headways and numbers of stations for each route. The team hasn’t yet filled in other information, like the number of queue jumpers and miles of dedicated lane.

This map contains many routes you yourselves suggested in the comments yesterday. It’s great that so many people weighed in about where they think transit would best serve their communities, which the TPB staff can incorporate into their thinking about which of these routes to select.

The plan also contains some routes that will run on area freeways instead of along commercial corridors. That would be a mistake akin to placing the Orange Line in the median of I-66 in Fairfax. It’s cheaper and easier to run a bus on the freeway, but greatly diminishes the development potential along the route, and ignores our lively existing commercial corridors to serve disconnected greenfield developments.

I suspect Maryland’s State Highway Administration and other state transportation officials have pushed for these routes. Highway builders like the idea of BRT on freeways because it incorporates transit’s enormous popularity into their existing freeway-oriented worldview. Robert Moses-era freeway planners developed a simple consensus: build freeways at a certain regular spacing, “upgrade” intersections with more turn lanes and grade-separated interchanges as traffic increases, and so on. That rebuilt our transportation network from the ground up around cars alone.

After a while, we realized that this system didn’t work, as endlessly expanding sprawl fueled by the freeways just created overwhelming traffic that only grew as we built more roads. Losing pedestrian and bicycle access forced everyone into cars and drove ballooning obesity. And the system destroyed our existing, vibrant center cities and walkable towns by pulling people and commerce away to distant strip malls. Nevertheless, many transportation officials cling to this outdated model, as we can see from Maryland officials’ continuing enthusiasm for new freeways in undeveloped areas, like Prince George’s County, and retooling busy intersections into “Los Angeles-style interchanges”, that concept is alive and well at SHA.

The current vogue among highway planners is to build toll lanes, like on the ICC. In theory, this will make new lanes pay for themselves, though in practice that’s never actually happened. Meanwhile, transit ridership is skyrocketing and elected officials support more transit. What’s a highway planner to do? Put transit in the new toll lanes and tout how fast the buses will move. That adds transit and build political support for freeway widenings.

Last year, TPB developed a plan that would add toll lanes to most of our region’s freeways, then run express bus service in those lanes. If we just rededicate an existing lane to tolls and buses, that’s not so bad; an existing freeway can move more people in less time and with less pollution if buses use one of the lanes. That’s not the best use of a major stimulus grant, however. And in many cases state officials hope to add lanes, like the Beltway HOT lanes in Virginia. Adding freeway lanes and creating some bus service in them is moving one step forward and ten steps back.

We already know first-hand the difference between building transit on a commercial corridor versus in a freeway. Arlington put the Orange Line under Wilson Boulevard, designed stops a moderate walk apart, and saw its Rosslyn-Ballston corridor boom. Fairfax ran the line inside I-66, and it never became anything more than a set of park-and-ride lots with no connection to Fairfax’s commercial nodes. Arlingtonians now walk and bike in record numbers and commute in very energy-efficient, sustainable ways. Plus, with bus or surface rail, there’s the added value to local businesses from driving people right down the commercial main street where they can see the shops along the way. If we run transit in freeways, particularly newly-widened ones, we’ll miss all of those benefits and push housing even farther from people’s jobs.

The original plan proposed a set of easy BRT lines that we could build in just three years for a few hundred million, perfect for these competitive stimulus grants. Those five corridors might or might not be the best ones, and a lively public debate will help focus us on the right ones. But the freeway alignments are definitely not the right ones. TPB should drop the freeway alignments from consideration.