Posts about Freeways

VA-7 light rail: Echoing Steve Offutt's vision for rail on VA-7, I envision this project as light rail. VA-7 is a main road in Northern Virginia that connects Alexandria to Tysons Corner and points west. It is also a spine that connects multiple ugly, gas guzzling edge cities that have lots of strip malls and acres of surface parking. Many of these strip malls are aging and would be prime Smart Growth redevelopment opportunities in the same vein as Rosslyn-Ballston.

I envision light rail rather than heavy rail because circumferential lines have traditionally had lower ridership than radial lines, although they tend to be less peak-focused. I also see this project as Virginia building their side of the Purple Line.

VA-7 has a lot of similarities to the current plans for the Purple Line. It connects traditional walkable urbanism, modern TOD, and post-war edge cities, both inside and outside the Favored Quarter. Most importantly, it offers connections to Maryland at the Wilson Bridge and at a to-be-named place east of Tysons. Like the existing plans for the Purple Line, challenges would include balancing speed and frequency of stations.

Complete the Purple Line: Between the VA-7 light rail vision, and the current Purple Line project, there is only one hole remaining in a completed Purple Line between New Carrollton and Alexandria. (There is also a hole between Tysons and Bethesda, but it is much smaller and has its unique challenges.) This past fall, Prince George's officials expressed interest in extending the Purple Line from New Carrolton to Largo through Suitland, (although there are proposals rerouting it to the Westphalia development) Oxon Hill, and National Harbor. This would be a long-term vision to be undertaken after the current plans for the Purple Line see groundbreaking.

National moratorium on highway building: My position has not changed. If anything, it has been calcified as we have experienced the highway lobby's misguided attempts to shove more highway projects down our collective throat. I can't remember who said that trying to solve automobile congestion by paving over more land is akin to trying to cure obesity by loosening one's belt. It's still true.

In Virginia, the laughable terms of the deal with Fluor-Transurban on the I-395 widening are a threat to suck money out of the Virginia budget for decades. Maryland is already experiencing sticker shock on the ICC.

I doubt that it was coincidence that the SHA and highway lobby attempted to get the I-270 widening passed in Montgomery County before toll pricing was discussed for the ICC. They wanted to take advantage of public perception of roads as "free." That project would have locked up money for new transportation projects in the state for decades. Projects like the ICC and the I-395 HOT lanes are emphasizing in the public consciousness that highways are huge, expensive projects with many negative externalities.

Close the Center Leg (I-395) between New York Ave and Massachusetts Ave: I reiterate what I said last year: "This segment induces through traffic on New York Avenue between the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and the Center Leg. The existing open cut could potentially be decked over and used as a right of way for a future heavy rail Blue Line at much lower cost than tunneling the same distance."

Separated Blue Line: A separated Blue Line through a new tunnel at Rosslyn, through Georgetown, the West End, the Golden Triangle BID, the Convention Center, Union Station, and along H Street NE will add enormous new commuter capacity and serve important areas that the Metro currently doesn't reach. The separated Blue Line will both solve the problems associated with the zipper at Rosslyn and offer redundant east-west service in the urban core of the region.

Just as I wrote back in June in the wake of the Red Line crash, everyone would be better served by having redundant transfer stations. This project is of high importance to the whole region, not just the District of Columbia. Perhaps the WMATA member jurisdictions could reach some sort of construction funding compromise similar the existing formula that is employed for operations.

Commuters will be greatly positively affected in Virginia on both the Blue and Orange Lines. Commuters from Prince George's County wouldn't have to put up with service delays that reverberate from delays associated with the Rosslyn zipper. Service on both the Blue and Orange Line could be increased since they wouldn't have to share tracks in the District, affecting all three jurisdictions.

Rockville Pike streetcar/White Flint: A coalition of landowners surrounding the White Flint Metro have gotten together in favor of a vision to recreate Rockville Pike between White Flint Mall and Montrose Road into a human-scale walkable urban place similar to Bethesda. The landowners recognize the vision as both the right thing to do economically and environmentally as well as an honest business opportunity. It is rare that such a stark opportunity for Smart Growth presents itself. My detailed testimony on behalf of ACT to the Montgomery County Council can be found here.

A major part of transforming the area into a traditional human-scale town is evolving Rockville Pike from its current state as a dangerous too-wide suburban arterial into an urban boulevard similar to Connecticut Avenue between the White House and Dupont Circle. The new White Flint town would be well-served by some kind of super-local transit. A streetcar in the median of Rockville pike will serve as a traffic calming mechanism, a safe haven for pedestrians crossing the road, and contribute to an inviting urban feel.

This would all be accomplished without taking away any automobile lanes. Existing lanes would be narrowed from over 12 feet to 10 or 11 feet. Drivers would drive more cautiously while pedestrians would have less asphalt to cross. The landowners believe in the boulevardization of the Pike so much that they are willing to cede a few feet of their properties in order to make it work.

National high-speed rail: We saw a lot of really cool maps and schematics about national high-speed rail corridors, similar to the existing Acela. While we haven't seen much since, some preliminary funding for studying the project was put in the stimulus package.

The reasons for building High Speed Rail remain as compelling as last year: "Train stations are usually located in the heart of downtown, while airports tend to be located 50 miles away. [Their remote location induces car-dependent sprawl along their access highways.] Delivering people to a city's center will boost demand for amenities downtown. It will also increase demand for regional and local mass transit, since visitors will arrive in the city without cars. As we have seen with our own Union Station, vibrant intercity train stations are powerful ways to create a sense of place."

Bob Chase heads the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance (not to be confused with the governmental Northern Virginia Transportation Authority). Chase wants to be the Robert Moses of the DC region. He wants to turn Greater Washington into Houston. He's the 1950s planning ideal that never died. For him, the more single-family cul-de-sac subdivisions and the more freeways crisscrossing Northern Virginia, the better.

NVTA pooh-poohs Transit-Oriented Development and the Metro, saying that because more trips happen by car today and most people don't live near transit, our region should invest exclusively in new expressways. That ignores the fundamental chicken-and-egg issue: more trips happen by car because we haven't built more housing around Metro stations and don't have streetcars or quality bus service to most neighborhoods. It's like saying that nobody will ever use the Internet because only 25% of the people in the world have Internet access. Clearly, we should pour governmental resources into the Pony Express.

NVTA's 6(!) Beltways.

Chase and Anderson are the snake oil salesmen arguing that even though all the other vats of snake oil just made you sick, your real problem is that you didn't buy enough snake oil. They want you to keep buying it and ignore all the doctors saying otherwise. Our region's leaders know better than to keep buying what they're peddling. It hasn't worked in the past and won't now.

These comments, like calling minimizing ecological harm "gibberish," should prove to our leaders that it's time to stop treating Chase as a respected voice of the business community or giving AAA any credibility beyond just another special interest lobby.

Please submit your own comments on the plan. You can submit them through the end of the Thanksgiving holiday, so it's best to comment now. The Coalition for Smarter Growth, which served on the GW2050 task force along with leaders in business, government, foundations, and other non-profits, has posted its letter of support for GW2050. Chase is trying to rally people to oppose any goals that look beyond roads alone, and to criticize any spending on bikes, pedestrians, and transit as totally wasteful.

We need to remind regional leaders that our many residents use many different modes of transportation, and a wise regional policy would combine them all instead of focusing on one alone. Urge them to support this report, which doesn't abandon roads but simply seeks to broaden the analysis and set performance targets for building livable communities. Only a narrow-minded road lobbying mindset would oppose that.

Sure, more people drive today than take transit along those routes. In fact, virtually nobody takes transit between Tysons Corner and Bethesda for the simple reason that there isn't any. But transportation expansion, whether roads or transit, will primarily serve new commuters, not the existing ones. If no new jobs or housing were coming to our region, we wouldn't be worried about HOT lanes, Purple Lines, or anything else. The current roads and rails move the people who move today. The new infrastructure we build will govern the locations and modes of new commuter growth. If we choose transit, we'll get new transit riders.

Besides, why don't we "have to do something" about Metro crowding? The Metro system is very crowded during rush hours, particularly along the Red and Orange Lines in the Favored Quarter. The Beltway is very crowded around there, too, as are I-66 and I-270. Yet for some reason, leaders talk about "having" to add more car capacity, but not about how we absolutely need to put in more tracks on the Metro or build transit across the Potomac. Why?

When our region adds auto capacity in one place, it creates bottlenecks in another place. Growth in western Fairfax is creating bottlenecks on I-66 through Arlington. The HOT lanes will create a bottleneck at the American Legion Bridge. When the automatic reaction of officials is simply to plan another capacity increase down the line, we start a chain reaction that never ends.

The ICC was "necessary" to get people from Prince George's County to jobs along 270. Then, now that there was going to be a freeway to the Gaithersburg West area, it's "critical" to upzone that for even more jobs. Next, since there was going to be so much job growth there, it becomes essential to widen I-270 to the north. Once there are lanes there and in Virginia, we "have to" add more across the Potomac.

Outer freeway proposals. Image from Blueprint For a Better Region.

Montgomery voters strongly oppose a freeway through Potomac, but they oppose new lanes on the Beltway as well, and leaders are saying we "have to" build it anyway. Maybe this generation of elected officials has no interest in that, but what will happen when the 12- and 14-lane I-270 and Beltway are hopelessly congested?

Leaders are supposed to lead. They are the ones who should be looking to the future and working toward the best vision of the future. A region with three Beltways, with as much development north and west of Dulles Airport as south and east, where Frederick is part of the region's core and middle suburbs are in West Virginia, isn't where we should go. There's plenty of room for economic growth around Metro, inside the Beltway, at Tysons, Route 7 and Springfield in Fairfax, Shady Grove, White Flint, Silver Spring, Wheaton and White Oak in Montgomery, and at every Prince George's Metro station. Leaders in Maryland and Virginia just need to stop saying "we have to" build more freeways and big office parks at the edge of the region, and instead encourage infill development and expand our great transit infrastructure.