Posts about Potomac

Let's say you have a road that's one lane in each direction. At one spot, it turns into 2 lanes each direction, then back to 1. What will happen?

People will speed up when the road widens, then merge back where it narrows. Merging creates "friction," forcing drivers to slow down a little more than usual and to wait for each other which can be inefficient. The end result is lower throughput overall than if the road simply stayed one lane.

This exact thing happens on the Clara Barton Parkway. There's an area just outside DC with exactly this geometry. The parkway might flow well until that point, yet during periods of moderate traffic there's always congestion right at the merge.

Sometimes an extra lane is worthwhile. Many mountain interstates widen to provide climbing lanes for large trucks, for instance. But the Clara Barton Parkway is not such a situation (and doesn't allow trucks, anyway).

For a short time I had to drive to Potomac in the evening rush periodically, and always wondered why this bizarre situation still existed. If the parkway simply remained one lane each way with the other closed, it would indeed ease congestion.

Maryland narrowed Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda around where it crosses the Beltway. The road, usually 2 lanes each way, widened to 4 and then narrowed again. Now, 2 whole lanes are marked off with stripes. That smooths traffic and also gives bicycles and pedestrians a better shoulder to use when connecting between neighborhoods on either side.

As for the FAIL Blog photo, that was on a highway in Cornwall, England in 2006. Huge numbers of drivers were descending on the region for a music festival, and officials recognized that a 2-mile passing lane would actually worsen traffic with the heavy load.

It may sound barmy but in fact it makes a lot of sense because, if it was left open, traffic from the two lanes would have to merge into one at the top. This causes a lot of aggro and a lot of stopping and starting which has been shown to delay traffic even more.

How about cutting down on the "aggro" on the Clara Barton as well?

Let me assure you that our organization is committed to using public transportation and have utilized it very successfully at past championships in other metropolitan areas such as New York and Chicago. In 2009, nearly 20,000 spectators per day took advantage of our service via the Long Island Railroad to attend the championship. Due to the proximity of the train station (less than 1 mile from the golf course) it was very easy to feature this service as a primary option.

Unfortunately, as efficient as the Metro system is in the Washington D.C. area, the nearest station to Congressional is over twenty minutes from the golf course which truly limits the ability to run a similar mass transit operation. Initially, we did not see Metro as a viable option and were not going to offer any additional service involving Metro. There was no way to tell what the usage would be and almost impossible to plan for it logistically (i.e...number and timing of buses, space requirements at the Metro station, etc…) without some sort of reservation system in place. However, we felt very strongly that we wanted to utilize the Metro system as much as possible, so we enlisted a local third party transportation company, Transportation Management Services (TMS) to provide this service very much like a sports charter for a football game.

The USGA is subsidizing the cost of this service and did so in order to make it a reasonable option for all spectators versus the cost of taking other forms of hired transportation such as taxis or limos which are often heavily utilized options by our spectators. We also compared this system to charges for regular public bus options and felt that the $8 daily charge for unlimited roundtrip use was comparable to the price of normal bus ridership.

While you are correct that the USGA is not charging for parking in our spectator lots, I think everyone is certainly aware of the expense of driving their personal automobile based on the current cost per gallon for gasoline. Therefore, we believe that the Metro option for the majority of people in the DC area will still likely be the cheapest and most efficient way to attend the championship.

Mr. Jones is right to underscore that the USGA has effectively used mass transit to get spectators to and from the US Open in the past. Unfortunately, this point makes this year's decision all the more baffling. He is quick to point out that even with an $8/person "fare" for the Metro shuttle, USGA is partially subsidizing the shuttle service.

Yet Jones fails to acknowledge directly that USGA is subsidizing the entire cost of parking and the shuttle for drivers. What's more, the shuttle trip from the Gaitherburg parking lots is more than twice the distance as the trip from Metro to the Country Club, making it a significantly more expensive service to subsidize in its entirety.

As I commented in the previous post, the USGA has clearly employed flawed logic in these decisions. They assume that relatively few people will use the Metro service, and that this fact necessitates a reservation system in order to provide no more service than is necessary. This decision, in turn, makes it not only less enticing, but also more difficult to use the Metro option, thereby making USGA's prediction of low usage a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The thinking at USGA boils down to this: The reality is that people will drive, so we have to make it as easy and as cheap as possible for them, especially because gas prices are so high. It would be nice if some people took Metro, so we'll throw them a bone. But not a free bone like we give all the poor drivers paying so much for gas.

This is an amusing justification. Essentially, he says that because gas prices are so high, parking and shuttles should be free to make it easier and cheaper for people to drive.

He also completely fails to account for the Metro fare riders have to pay to even make it to the $8 shuttle at Grosvenor. The off-peak one-way fare from Metro Center is $2.60, the regular and peak of the peak for the Thursday and Friday rounds are over $4.00.

The assertion that $8 is a reasonable charge in comparison to bus fares in the region is equally laughable. The T2 bus runs from Friendship Heights Metro to Rockville Metro, stopping at Congressional Country Club. A round-trip fare on this bus (using SmarTrip) is $3. Even if spectators are making multiple round trips, which is highly unlikely, two trips to and from the course would still be only $6.

Jones implies that they chose to make Metro a secondary option this year because the closest stations weren't as convenient to access as LIRR in Bethpage or Metra at Olympia Fields. Yet USGA chooses not to run shuttles from the closest Metro station, while offering free shuttles that go twice as far to free parking lots farther from the city center.

This is the epitome of the kind of mentality that is keeping most Americans, not just Washingtonians, from enjoying easier access to more efficient and affordable alternatives to driving. If you are planning to attend the US Open and feel that the USGA should offer you the same benefits to ride the Metro as they do to drive your car, email Reg Jones and tell him.

Spectators MUST make a reservation in advance, for an additional cost, directly with TMS. Additional information regarding this service and how to place an order directly with TMS will be available on-line beginning May 2nd.

The guide originally listed the cost as $8, but USGA replaced it with the vaguer "an additional cost" in the past few days. The guide promises more information would be posted by May 2, but as of today, no more information seems to be available.

Meanwhile, drivers will be offered free parking and free shuttles to and from their cars all day long.

Organizers struck a deal with Montgomery County to allow US Open ticket holders to use the County Fairgrounds parking lots as well as an overflow lot nearby. Drivers will not be charged for parking and the Open will provide free shuttle service to and from the lots.

Both of the parking lots are located in Gaitherburg, nearly 15 miles from the Congressional Country Club. Meanwhile, Grosvenor-Strathmore is half that distance. The Bethesda Metro would have required only a 5 mile shuttle trip.

So why the blatant transit-rider discrimination? After all, the USGA offered free transportation and security clearance from the Farmingdale LIRR station for the 2009 tournament at Bethpage Black.

I reached out to the USGA as well as their event planning contractor but hadn't received a response as of post time.

Thanks to reader Corey H. for the tip.