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Debate still lingers over new highways
More than 40 years after plans first surfaced for a western bypass in Northern Virginia, the debate still rages.The idea of a highway through Prince William and into the Dulles area or beyond was revived this season when the General Assembly briefly took up a bill requiring officials to start planning for the highway.
The bill didn't get far in the legislature, but it was enough to stir emotions again. Earlier this month, Stewart Schwartz of the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Bob Chase of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance debated the region's highway plans at a forum sponsored by the Prince William Committee of 100.
At issue are three theoretical roads, all in various stages of the planning process, and none of which have any money for actual construction.
The so-called Western Transportation Corridor is envisioned as a highway running from Stafford County up through Gainesville and on to Route 7 in Loudoun. In more hypothetical planning, the road would be a segment of a new outer beltway circling the region through Charles, Prince Georges and Montgomery counties in Maryland and Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier and Stafford counties in Virginia.
The Tri-County Parkway was initially intended to run from the Manassas area through Centreville to the Dulles airport in Loudoun County. In 2005, however, state transportation officials opted for a bi-county option instead that would start at the junction of Interstate 66 and the 234 Bypass and would run up past Sudley Park to U.S. 50 in Loudoun.
While the Tri-County Parkway has officially been scrapped in favor of the Bi-County Parkway, it remains a theoretical possibility and the option favored by Chase and the NVTA.
Whether all or any of the roads will ever be built will depend primarily on money. Whether they should be built is a question that continues to evoke strong feelings on both sides.
The region already has the nation's second-worst congestion, Chase said, and 2 million more people are expected to move in over the next 30 years. As many as 300,000 more will move into the southern and western commuter counties of Stafford, Spotsylvania, King George and Fauquier. Dulles International Airport, meanwhile, will double its annual number of passengers.
“Now is not the time to stick our heads in the sand and ignore these realities,” he said.
Chase argued that the Western Transportation Corridor, also called the Western Bypass, would take more than 100,000 vehicles per day off regional roads and would provide a direct link for passengers and freight to and from the airport.
The Bi-County Parkway, he said, would alleviate traffic on U.S. 15, U.S. 29 and Gum Spring Road.
The Tri-County Parkway would take “considerable” traffic off Route 28 and would provide the most direct link from Manassas to Dulles.
Common sense dictates that when you create alternative highways, you alleviate traffic on existing roads, he said.
But Schwartz disagrees.
None of the roads provide a direct path to Dulles, he pointed out, because all of them end at the western side of the airport. The only entrance is more than four miles away at the eastern side and since traffic can't cross the runways, there's no way to add a western entrance. Either a beltway would need to be built around the airport or roads would have to be tunneled underneath. Both of those alternatives present serious difficulties of money and feasibility and neither is in the plans.
“We're headed down a dead end when we keep focusing on this instead of the very real problems,” he said, also pointing out that studies indicate there is no bottleneck for freight coming and going from the airport.
Schwartz argued that adding new roads will only bring about more development, quickly canceling out any traffic benefits and diverting money from better alternatives.
Virginia's dwindling transportation budget would be better spent on maintaining existing roads and expanding transit, he said.
Chase pointed out after the debate that everyone supports the idea of transit but no one plans to use it themselves. They envision buses and trains as alleviating congested roads so their own drives will be easier, he said.
Their disagreement highlights the twofold problem with solving the region's congestion.
First, there's a very limited pot of money for transportation. And second, there's no agreement on how to use it.
The cost of the Tri-County Parkway was estimated at $500 million.
Asked how he would spend $500 million to improve the region's traffic, Chase said he'd extend Route 28 into Maryland with another Potomac River crossing.
Schwartz said his priority for $500 million would be boosting Metro and local bus service, maintaining existing roads and bridges and adding priority bus service to I-66 and I-95.
Prince William Board of Supervisor Chairman Corey Stewart (R) and Brentsville Supervisor Wally Covington (R) were also at the debate.
Stewart said afterwards he'd use $500 million to add extra lanes to I-66 and I-95 and Covington said he'd rather build the Bi-County Parkway.
Four different experts, four different opinions and no money. And therein lies the problem.
Washington Western Bypass or Western Transportation Corridor-Summary of Findings From Previous Studies/Reports
Maryland and Virginia dropped the proposed bypass in 1989 after a draft Environmental Impact Study concluded that it would not relieve traffic on the beltway, it would in fact cause increased east-west traffic, and at $1.5 billion it would be too expensive. Maryland has steadfastly declined to participate with Virginia in the renewed study, which was initiated by Governor Allen in 1994 at the urging of Northern Virginia developers.
VDOT’s 1997 Major Investment Study (MIS) found that traffic on I-95 would decrease a minimal amount of 4.8%. On I-66 it would decrease about 1% west of Rt. 28. It will cause an INCREASE on other major roads such as Rt. 50 west of Rt. 606 (22.7%), Rt. 15 north of Leesburg (21.8%) and Rt. 7 west of Rt. 659 (10.7%). VDOT did no analysis of the highway on Rt. 28 or other roads east of Rt. 28.
The MIS shows that only 3,000 (one way) trips per day will be made the entire length of the highway, between I-95 and Rt. 7, in the year 2020. This means that most of the trips will be short. The maximum one-way volume on any segment will be 47,000 vehicles per day. Recently-built north-south roads include the Fairfax County Parkway, the Prince William Parkway, the widening of Rt. 28 in Fairfax and Loudoun, and the Rt. 234 bypass. Also on the books are completing overpasses for Rt. 28, as well as the Tri-County Connector in Fairfax and Prince William and the Loudoun County Parkway, just west of Dulles.
An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the MIS concluded that a new highway “has the potential to directly impact up to ten times the wetlands area, cross ten times the flood plain area, increase the potential for threatened and endangered plant impacts by 2.5 times, and potentially threaten the Lake Manassas public water supply” when compared to other, less costly, alternatives. The National Park Service expressed concern about the highway’s effect on the Manassas National Battlefield Park as well as on the Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg National Military Parks.
The Marine Corps’s position is: “Marine Corps Base, Quantico, opposes use of base land for the Western Transportation Corridor … MCB, Quantico cannot support the conversion of finite training resources to non-military purposes.”
Studies have consistently shown that this highway will not relieve current or future traffic congestion, but that it will cause increased congestion on other major roads. Why should we cling to an outmoded plan from the Eisenhower era?
Posted by treebeard
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