Traffic
What Makes Traffic Worse
While we prefer to promote smart planning, we must also fight bad planning. Some transportation projects designed to "relieve traffic" can actually makes things worse.
One such type of project, outer beltways, shifts development farther away from the city and inner suburbs. These roads rapidly open up land for development, making it nearly impossible to build enough infrastructure - schools, hospitals, fire stations - to keep up with the new houses. These highways also exponentially increase the acres of fields and forests that get consumed by often badly-planned development. Too often, transportation decisions are made in isolation from a thoughtful land use plan. Below are examples of the "Bad and the Ugly" in local transportation projects.
- Widening roads to fix congestion (More lanes just bring more traffic.)
- The Outer Beltway and its many segments (ICC, Western Bypass, Techway, etc.)
- I-81 8-lane expansion
- 11th Street 12-lane bridge expansion
Our existing transit infrastructure gives us a great opportunity to reduce traffic
What Can Reduce Traffic
You can't get through a day in our region without hearing a complaint about traffic. Trying to get to soccer games, to the grocery store on the weekend, out of town to hike and worst of all, daily commutes, take a serious toll. For happy families and a strong economy, we have to improve the current situation -- and we can. There are many ways to reduce the demand on our roads and provide more options for how we move around.
Core Principles:
- Integrate transportation with land use planning.
- "Fix-it-first" -- invest in maintenance and operation of existing roads and transit.
- Invest in public transportation.
- Build mixed-use development next to transit stations.
- Invest in local street interconnections and bicycle/pedestrian facilities.
- Reduce scattered, sprawling development.
- Invest in "safe routes to school."
Creative Solutions:
- Employer-provided "MetroChek," tax-free transit benefits.
- Showers, lockers and bike parking at work for the bicycle commuters.
- Car-sharing (ZIPCAR) memberships.
- Incentives for car-pooling.
Examples of Viable Transportation Alternatives:
- Purple Line
- Rail to Tyson's Corner with the right design
- "Complete Streets" projects that include on-street bike lanes, and good sidewalks and safe crossings; on-street Zipcar spaces
- Columbia Pike Ride
