ENGLISH FOR SENATE POSITION
PAPER (Revised April 2014)
Washington/Baltimore Regional
Traffic Congestion
In November 2005, I attended the
National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB)
sponsored a forum titled "What if the Washington Region Grew
Differently?" I was amazed to learn that, other than the recently
constructed Inter-County Connector, there were no new major
highways planned for the Washington area or additional bridges
planned for crossing the Potomac River. These plan
limitations were made despite the TPB's forecasts of an expected
30% population growth in the Washington metropolitan region by the
year 2030. There was much discussion of transit
improvements and HOT toll lanes for existing highway corridors,
but no recognition of the fact that Washington and Baltimore have
no bypass highways planned for interstate coastal through traffic
similar to the I-295 bypass around Richmond and Petersburg that
has already existed for the past twenty five years. Simple
short-term transit solutions such as the regional express bus
system now operating in the Denver Metropolitan area were not even
considered. Instead, High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes for the
Beltway and other major highways are now being constructed to
speed the wealthy along their way (i.e., "Lexus Lanes") with
everyone else either paying the extortionate tolls or sharing the
increasingly congested adjacent roadway lanes.
Rather than resort to unaffordable expensive rail transit or
exclusionary road user solutions, there are short term low-cost
express commuter bus alternatives that could and should be
implemented within the next five years to alleviate traffic
congestion and reduce the economic and social costs arising
therefrom. Dedicated bus and HOV lanes such as the Corridor
Cities plan should be constructed or expanded along major
thoroughfares to speed bus and HOV commuters to and from their
places of employment. Firms in major employment centers
should sponsor employer-subsidized express bus service to bring
employees to their work sites from specially designated suburban
and outer suburban commuter parking lots. A computerized
point-to-point origin/destination data base should be developed
for each major employment center to identify the numbers and
locations of employees’ residences and identify convenient parking
areas where they could board express commuter buses for getting to
work. Similarly, a dedicated express bus only (and
emergency vehicle) restricted traffic bridge should be constructed
across the Potomac River at Seneca to provide express bus service
between major employment centers on both sides of the river and
also provide express bus service to and from Dulles
Airport. The road network to Seneca already exists on the
Maryland side of the river and would need to be minimally upgraded
to handle the increased bus traffic. A word of caution, however,
must be mentioned about the danger of exceeding the capacity of
Metro's red line by overbuilding high rise commercial and
residential structures that would depend upon the red line for
movement of their occupants. Not only must the physical passenger
movement capacity of the trains be evaluated, but also the ground
access and parking availability in the vicinity of the Metro
stations. These evaluations must become an integral part of the
zoning and permit approval processes. Planning for extensions of
Metro's red line to Olney and Germantown and acquisition of land
for future Metro stations should be undertaken without further
delay.
In the longer term, planning should begin immediately for a
limited access express regional Eastern bypass highway that would
begin at I-95 North of Washington and follow the existing
Laurel-Bowie road corridor to U. S. 50 and from there parallel U.
S. 301 to the Potomac River. It would continue to parallel
to U. S. Route 301 through Northern Virginia until it connects
with the I-295 Bypass North of Richmond. Entrance and
exits should be permitted only at U. S.
50, Maryland Route 5, and U.S. Route 17 in Virginia to
prevent the highway from being overloaded by commuter
traffic. A post and beam bridging scheme with a specially
designed roadway runoff collection and wastewater treatment system
for protecting the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge along its route must
be incorporated into the project.
The Washington/Baltimore region also desperately needs a
restricted access bypass highway to route through traffic from the
Northeast toward the South. It should start at I-95 a few
miles South of the Susquehanna River bridge and run westward in an
arc toward the Monocacy River South of Westminster. It would then
turn southward East of Frederick before crossing the Potomac
River into Virginia near the Point of Rocks bridge. From
there it should run South on the West side of Leesburg and follow
the U. S. 15 and U. S. 17 corridor southward until rejoining I- 95
South of Fredricksburg. Entrances and exits should be
permitted only at I-83 and I-70 in Maryland and I-66 and U. S. 17
in Virginia to prevent commuter traffic from overloading the
roadway. It would carry through interstate traffic around
the Baltimore/Washington region similar to Interstate Highways 278
and 287 in New Jersey. These highways are segments of an
outer "Beltway" running in an arc through central and Northern New
Jersey from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge over the Hudson River
south of New York City into New York state connecting with the
Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River North of the city.
Finally, recognition should be made that there are no rest rooms
in the Metro stations or along the Beltways and major access
highways either in the Baltimore or Washington Metro areas.
With frequent hours-long delays from major traffic
accidents, weather disruptions, etc, it is inhuman to subject
travelers on the region's highways or rail transit systems to the
anguish of not having these facilities available when they are
urgently needed. Many more highway rest areas need to
be established around the Beltways and along the region's
interstate highways along with portable toilets being placed every
quarter mile elsewhere along these highways for emergency use only
during major traffic backups. Similarly, until rest room
facilities could be designed and built into the Metro stations,
portable toilet facilities such as those used at construction
sites for patron use should be placed at the ends of the platforms
in every Metro station. The Metro riders' fare cards could be
charged a dollar for each use by mounting fare card readers or
coin locks for patron access on the entrance doors of these
facilities.