Custis Trail Riders – Take the VDOT I-66 Survey

[rcannon100]

where do you think all of these cars would go if I66 were widened?

Yup. They would go into Arlington (among other places). Increasing the capacity of roads only fosters filling that increased capacity and dumb growth. Widening I-66 would not remove cars from the side roads of Arlington (and away from bicycles), it would actually add to it. More cars on 66 mean more cars trying to jam through the 66 exchanges (Glebe Rd, Washington Blvd, Lee Hwy, Rosslyn, 110), and going through Arlington side roads. Its really simple math: More Cars = More cars (everywhere)

I mean this conversation just goes on and on. But this one question just amazes me. Where do these cars come from and go to? And this conversation always seems to end up at – the refusal of people to live where they work. And one of the big problems for Arlington is people living in Maryland who either work in Virginia or work in Wash DC. Problem is that Maryland NW does not have a good car artery. So they come over to use the GW, jamming it and the beltway up. GW is jammed, so Virginia traffic spills over to 66. 66 gets jamed up, so then 50 gets jammed. And so on in a cascading failure. This is a big problem of where people choose to live – and it is a more specific problem of how Montgomery County has gotten away with not having a highway scared through its community – resulting in Montgomery traffic coming over and jamming Arlington Roads (Arlington, on the other hand has the GW Parkway North, I-66, I-396, GW Parkway South, and Route 50 – all major thoroughfares cutting through our community). Arlington takes the brunt of a lot of other communities lousy (or privileged) planning.

[DismalScientist]

@rcannon100 I think you just made my point. Montgomery county doesn’t have good highway connections to DC. Traffic is diverted to streets and to some extent the GW parkway and perhaps I-66. Do I want to ride my bike from Montgomery county to DC on local streets? Don’t think so–because of all the automobile commuters on these roads, which are not designed for the traffic.

So what do we smart people in Virginia do to solve this problem? We build a narrow freeway and restrict its use to HOV. In essence Arlington is doing the exact same thing that you complain Montgomery County is doing. (The GW parkway north doesn’t really affect Arlington traffic–there aren’t any inbound interchanges.) Note that 50 being jammed is NOT caused by I-66 being jammed. I-66 is not jammed at rush hours; it is restricted. So what happens to all the traffic that would go on I-66? It gets squeezed out onto local streets. Look at all the traffic on eastbound 66 turning on the Beltway to get to Arlington Blvd. Why do you think this happens?

I live near Westover. Washington Blvd is bumper-to-bumper traffic from Lee Hwy to Glebe every morning. Is this happening because I-66 was built and magically caused this traffic? Obviously not. If I-66 had more capacity and was not restricted, any sane driver would stay on the freeway rather than take side streets as the vast majority of traffic on Washington Blvd. is clearly doing. I might be able to cross Washington Blvd. on foot two blocks from my house without waiting for a gap in the traffic every five minutes.

[mstone]

@DismalScientist 9661 wrote:

I-66 is not jammed at rush hours; it is restricted

Do you actually drive on 66? I’m gonna vote “jammed” on this one.

Side note: the survey people tell me that the proper response for someone who commutes by bike a couple of days a week is to select bicycle for the “part of the primary commute” question. I hope I’m not the only one for whom that wasn’t an obvious approach.

[americancyclo]

They had two folks handing out the same survey this morning at West Falls Church metro. Must be a bigger push than I thought.

[eminva]

They were also handing out the survey on the W&OD right where the Custis branches off this morning. I give them credit for coming out in the rain.

Liz

[americancyclo]

Those folks on the trail get a gold star. The folks at metro were hiding inside Then again, I guess I was too, since I was hiding inside a metro car for my whole commute today.

[DismalScientist]

@mstone: No I don’t drive on 66 during rush hour. I observe it from the trail. Let me clarify: I-66 is not jammed inside the beltway during rush hour in the direction of the HOV restrictions; it is restricted. The traffic congestion on I-66 inside the beltway is not causing the traffic moving to Arlington Blvd, etc. The HOV restrictions are.

[WillStewart]

I am also against lifting the HOV or adding more lanes to 66 inside the beltway. It would only deepen the oil-addiction mentality of too many people, would cause horrible congestion (and lower throughput of people/hour), and would strip away all of the important gains made with respect to carpooling, vanpooling, bus riding, metro riding, and yes, cycling. Might this mean there were more and more cyclists ‘crowding’ Custis Trail? Yes, but that would be a GOOD THING.

I believe we should think and act like a community, not just each of us for our own self-interest,without regard to impacts on the rest of our neighbors and the region as a whole.

If they lengthened the HOV period, that would remove the early crush that lasts so long. And the hybrid exemption should be tweaked to only count for vehicles obtaining at least 40mpg combined hwy/city EPA, as gashog SUV and pickup hybrids don’t really help with our dependence on foreign oil. Or else make hybrids HOV-2 while the rest are HOV-3.

[DismalScientist]

I suppose my snarky response to the ‘opposition’ should be: “I assume you favor putting HOV restrictions on all freeways in the area, since that will reduce the amount of driving. That will clearly make this area the bicycling and transit-riding paradise that it is meant to be. Furthermore, this effect will reduce traffic on secondary roads.”

[WillStewart]

You are right, your response IS snarky

We can speak for ourselves, of course. I personally would like to get ahead of the major issues associated with a peak in global oil production, and such actions need to take place 10-20 years ahead of said peak, which most independent petrogeologists place in this decade, if it already hasn’t happened yet;

Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, US DoE, 2005

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-26/peak-oil-crisis-energy-trap

[dasgeh]

@DismalScientist 9661 wrote:

I live near Westover. Washington Blvd is bumper-to-bumper traffic from Lee Hwy to Glebe every morning. Is this happening because I-66 was built and magically caused this traffic? Obviously not. If I-66 had more capacity and was not restricted, any sane driver would stay on the freeway rather than take side streets as the vast majority of traffic on Washington Blvd. is clearly doing. I might be able to cross Washington Blvd. on foot two blocks from my house without waiting for a gap in the traffic every five minutes.

I believe you’ve misunderstood my (and others’) argument. It’s not that I-66 caused the traffic. It’s that if capacity on I-66 were raised (by removing restrictions, widening or both), then more people would drive more cars. In the short term, I agree some of the drivers on Washington Blvd would move to I-66. But in the long term, people who today take the Metro or carpool would say “oh, it’s marginally easier, so I’ll drive alone more often”. Even worse, people moving into this area will see the cheaper house prices out West and decide to move there, thinking they can drive to their job. Eventually, the higher capacity I-66 will be just as full. And the additional drivers will spill over to Washington Blvd. We’ll be in the same situation we’re in today, except there will be even more cars out-and-about, and those cars will eventually leave arterials and park, drive through Rosslyn, drive around the District, or whatever. More cars = more hazards for us cyclists.

I live on Washington Blvd. I completely understand the desire to have the cars magically disappear from my neighborhood. But the way to do that isn’t to spend money on streets. It’s to spend money on things that will lead to fewer cars – easier carpooling, better buses, better Metro, more cycling, more smart growth.

[rcannon100]

If you look at any of the roads near major highways, those roads are jammed. Roads near the beltway, near I 395, or worse, near the jersey turnpike – jammage.

Increasing capacity brings in more cars – makes it more attractive to drive. Increasing capacity would bring more cars to Westover, not less (and would destroy all the homes in Westover near I-66).

[WillStewart]

@dasgeh 9726 wrote:

Eventually, the higher capacity I-66 will be just as full. And the additional drivers will spill over to Washington Blvd. We’ll be in the same situation we’re in today, except there will be even more cars out-and-about, and those cars will eventually leave arterials and park, drive through Rosslyn, drive around the District, or whatever. More cars = more hazards for us cyclists.

I live on Washington Blvd. I completely understand the desire to have the cars magically disappear from my neighborhood. But the way to do that isn’t to spend money on streets. It’s to spend money on things that will lead to fewer cars – easier carpooling, better buses, better Metro, more cycling, more smart growth.

Totally agree, and would expect the bleed-over on side streets to be the same regardless, when thousands more attempt to drive single occupant cars into DC or Arlington. A jam will occur, and those same drivers will bail out to Arlington Blvd, Lee Highway, and Washington Blvd. Look what happened when they expanded Rt 66 outside the Beltway? It has a lower service rating now than when it was two lane out past Fairfax. All it did was induce traffic and more sprawl. Building more roads is like buying larger waistband clothes to ‘solve’ one’s weight problem.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh: I agree with this. In general, it is appropriate to raise the costs of driving alone relative to transit, carpooling, telecommuting and biking alternatives. Generally all the alternatives are already subsidized: There is a heavy rail transit system through the corridor, for which many employers offer a subsidy; Many employers offer preferential parking for carpoolers; Similarly, telecommuting is encouraged. Besides racks and showers, I don’t know how to subsidize bicycling. (Maybe they can buy my N+1st bike!)

IMHO, The I-66 deal that Arlington got into in the 1970’s got into offers the worst of all world because they tried to solve a global problem with a piecemeal solution. So what have now is a freeway that splits Arlington in half (although it is well-designed to minimize the ill effects) but whose restrictions tend to lead to more traffic on local Arlington streets. The purpose of this deal was to keep Arlington from having to pay the road costs of Fairfax commuters to Washington by raising these costs to commuters. The problem is that that the restrictions have apparently not controlled the growth of these commuters; and Arlington bears these costs.

The solution to the global problem of getting less driving can’t simply be addressed by restricting capacity on one road. This just squeezes the problem elsewhere. The damage to Arlington was done when I-66 was originally built. IMHO, building it to its full width within the walls doesn’t substantially add to the damage. Furthermore, it can limit the unintended consequences of the original restrictions.

[WillStewart]

@DismalScientist 9734 wrote:

IMHO, building it to its full width within the walls doesn’t substantially add to the damage. Furthermore, it can limit the unintended consequences of the original restrictions.

I must say we’ll have to agree to disagree. The actual throughput of persons/hour would decrease because of the logjam effect. And likely more people would bail out to local Arlington streets, further exacerbating your daily commute.

[Author]

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