Our transportation priorities

Transit

Our transportation priorities

by David Alpert • June 17, 2008 9:21 am

BeyondDC wrote about the latest Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), released by MWCOG's Transportation Planning Board. This summarizes all transportation projects through 2014 that the region's governments have funded or plan to fund.

DC's contains a lot of streetscapes and Great Streets programs, but the biggest items are $717 million for South Capitol Street and the Frederick Douglass Bridge and $447 million for the 11th Street bridge. Maryland's is totally dwarfed by the Intercounty Connector, $2.1 billion dollars big and getting stupider every day. Virginia, on the other hand, has almost no bike trails or pedestrian-friendly roads in their plan, but they have chosen to put most of their state's transportation priorities behind transit with $4.5 billion for the Dulles Metrorail (Silver Line) project, while also blowing over $1 billion on Beltway HOT lanes.

Below are pie charts summarizing the spending priorities of each jurisdiction.

"Cars and people" represent projects which improve streets in ways that benefit everyone, such as road reconstructions that include sidewalks and bike lanes as a major portion. But widening a small road into a big four-lane highway and saying that "sidewalks will be constructed where appropriate" and "wide curb lanes will provide space for bicycles," as in many Maryland projects, doesn't count. "Pedestrians & biycles" includes off-street trails, recreational parkland, and programs to encourage non-motorized commuting.

Update: I've resized each pie to have an area proportional to the total amount of spending for each jurisdiction (thanks Michael) and fixed an error where two numbers were reversed in the legend (thanks Becca).

18 comments

Tags: bicycling, DC, ICC, Maryland, pedestrians, Silver Line, traffic, transit, Virginia

TIGER funds bus corridors, not K Street or bike sharing (Feb 17, 2010)
Rein's "OMG $15 billion" Tysons costs include transportation far from Tysons (Oct 30, 2009)
Maryland and Virginia trade places (Dec 19, 2008)
Fairfax, PG worst for pedestrian safety (Apr 23, 2008)
The federally tilted playing field on transportation (Sep 10, 2007)

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

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Would it be possible to make the circles different sizes to reflect the fact that with the Virginia spending, we're talking about a larger amount of money ($7.5B, approximately) compared with MD ($4.4B) or DC ($3.5B)? The "cars only" wedge for VA looks small, but it's actually only 20% smaller than the MD "cars only" wedge.

The diameters should be scaled with the square root of the totals, to prevent the VA circle from looking four times as large as DC (by area).

Thanks for the diagram, though. This was a helpful contribution.

by Michael Perkins on Jun 17, 2008 9:37 am • link • report

The HOT lanes are going to be a boondoogle indeed. It will create nothing but headaches during construction, create new chokepoints, and it really serves no purpose in the current climate of skyrocketing gas prices and diminishing demand. I don't care where the money is coming from, it is going to the wrong thing. Fixing current chokepoints (I'm looking at you I-66 at Beltway and at Dulles Toll Road!), Rail, Mass Transit, pedestrian friendly features and bike trails should all be priorities over this.

by NikolasM on Jun 17, 2008 10:21 am • link • report

I agree with NikolasM. Virginia putting more into rail transit would be a better use of our tax dollars.

by dcseain on Jun 17, 2008 11:14 am • link • report

Fantastic post! Here in CT, the figures are similar: 60%+ spent on highways, and less than 1% spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects. Why are our leaders so shortsighted?

by downtown new haven on Jun 17, 2008 11:26 am • link • report

Maryland spends 25% more than DC, yet DC's admin costs are 3 times as much. Virginia spends 300% more than DC and its admin costs less than 1/9 of DCs - why?

by andy on Jun 17, 2008 11:26 am • link • report

andy: I'm not sure you can draw that conclusion. Virginia may simply not break out their management in the same way, instead paying them out of road projects or something. Most of DC's admin category is "planning", and if anything DDOT needs more and better planning, not less.

Also, "admin" isn't just overhead. I classified projects as "admin" that were things like GIS projects and also vaguer pots of money.

by David Alpert on Jun 17, 2008 11:34 am • link • report

The numbers in the MD legend don't seem right. I think "Pedestrians and People" and "Transit" should be swapped.

by khb on Jun 17, 2008 11:37 am • link • report

Thanks, khb, you're right. Fixed.

by David Alpert on Jun 17, 2008 11:43 am • link • report

Wow, two CT people in one thread on a non-CT blog?

Just out of curiousity, what kind of transit projects is VA financing? I've been to a number of cities in VA and I don't remember anything aside from a decent bus system in Richmond. Is there a rail system I'm forgetting?

by sujal on Jun 17, 2008 1:51 pm • link • report

Never mind -- reading comprehension isn't apparently a skill I have today. I read the Dulles line as 45 million... not 4.5 bil. When the page reloaded after the comment saved, it jumped out at me.

by sujal on Jun 17, 2008 1:53 pm • link • report

Not that much earmarked by DC for Metrorail(Transit). If the Silver Line gets built that is going to impact the trunk of the system as well. The trunk obviously being inside the District. So does D.C. not expect the Silver Line to have made progress within this period (2014?) to the point that it impacts them? Or would funds from either VA or the Federal government pay for the impact the Silver Line would have to the trunk of Metro?

by FourthandEye on Jun 17, 2008 2:42 pm • link • report

FourthandEye: This list includes federal funds as well as local (most of the Silver Line money would be federal, for example). The original list does show the expected source for each pot of money.

I think DC hasn't included the Blue Line because it's not one of DC's top priorities right now. It's mostly being pushed by WMATA, whose budget isn't broken down here, except for payments directly to WMATA by the various jurisdictions.

For that matter, the main impetus for the Blue Line, the capacity constraints, is mostly driven by Virginia. If it happens, it would probably be the political muscle of Virginia (with its representation in Congress and all).

by David Alpert on Jun 17, 2008 2:53 pm • link • report

this makes me feel discouraged. Especially since

i had a biking accident this morning and got a broken arm, which will make me choose between taking transit to work to a place in NE that is transit-unfriendly (1 hr 20 min. minimum travel time if the connections are good) or drive (20-25 min.). The bike ride is 20-30 min. Why should my desire and effort to take transit be so difficult? Does my government hate me? Driving w/one arm will be significantly more dangerous than typing this note. But really, am i going to spend 3 hrs every day to go 12 mi round trip? Hey DC Goverment- we need better transit ! how can dc be so backwards? arggh.

by Bianchi on Jun 17, 2008 3:18 pm • link • report

Oh no! Hope you are ok :(

by David Alpert on Jun 17, 2008 3:43 pm • link • report

yes, thanks. except for the arm. glad i was wearing a helmet.

by Bianchi on Jun 17, 2008 3:54 pm • link • report

Bianchi> Does my government hate me?

That was rhetorical, right? I mean, you have been watching the Bush machine for a few years now.

by Otter on Jun 17, 2008 9:10 pm • link • report

Thanks so much for this post.

Too often when we talk about transit we are talking about increasing taxes to pay for it. Questions of taxation are important, but first, this needs to be a question of PRIORITY! Highways are just as much a big government project as transit. Okay, we are going to spend X dollars on transportation. How do we do it? More and more today the answer should favor transit and walkable, cyclist friendly projects. Once our priorities are straight, only then should we look at what to do with the revenue side. Governing is about making decisions. Just looking for more money when our priorities are all screwed up is avoiding making the tough decisions.

by Gleb on Jun 18, 2008 3:25 am • link • report

Otter, oh yeah. regarding THaT government "discouraging" has been an understatment. As Gleb states if we (locally, nationally) make non-car transport a priority we could have good choices instead of being forced into a car to get somewhere, which is too often the case. How do we get the priority changed? Is it lack of vision? Lack of experience, i.e. most Americans, policy makers included, have not lived in a place with truly good transit. Is there any truth to those stories I heard in the 80's about the conspiracy between big-oil and firestone rubber to lobby (buy off?) legislators to tear up the tracks and force people into cars? How do help get the priority onto transit?

by Bianchi on Jun 18, 2008 8:13 am • link • report