Coalition for Smarter Growth PRESS RELEASE November 1, 2004 Contacts: Chris Miller, 540-347-2334 or Laura Olsen, 202-244-4408
VDOT Revives Western Bypass Private Partnership Would Marginalize Public Involvement on Unpopular Project

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) announced today that it will revive the Western Transportation Corridor – the Outer Beltway – by opening the project to bids from private companies through the Public Private Transportation Act. The WTC is a proposed highway from I-95 near Quantico through Stafford, Fauquier, Prince William and Loudoun to Route 7. Proponents would like the project to cross the Potomac River into Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve.

“At a time when necessary transportation projects have no funding, VDOT has prioritized finding a way to fund an unnecessary and unpopular highway through semi-rural areas of Northern Virginia,” said Laura Olsen, Assistant Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “And VDOT’s answer is to use a funding process that shuts out input from citizens and affected communities.”

WTC Would Make Traffic Worse and Not Solve Current Congestion
VDOT’s own 1997 Western Transportation Corridor study confirms that 91% of future traffic will be moving east-west, not north-south. Currently, 48% of Loudoun commuters work in Fairfax, 33% in Loudoun and 9% in DC according to County figures.

The unpopularity of the project stems from the effects it would have on nearby communities and from the development and traffic that the highway would generate. VDOT’s 2020 Plan analysis of the WTC confirms this fear by noting that 84% of traffic on the WTC would be “induced” or generated by the presence of a new highway and resulting development. Traffic from the Outer Beltway would end up trying to get east on already over-crowded roads including Routes 7, 29 and 50; I-66 and the Dulles Greenway.

A previous attempt to fund the project through the 2002 sales tax referendum for transportation was rejected by northern Virginia voters. The “no” vote was strongest in Loudoun and Prince William counties, where 64% voted “no”. The WTC resurfaced earlier this year when Loudoun County’s Board of Supervisors introduced a resolution to put the highway back on the County’s transportation plan. The resolution was sent back to the Planning Commission after hundreds of citizens objected and it is currently still at the Planning Commission.

“Our county does not need a north-south outer beltway, it needs local road network improvements to help people get to the store and to drive east to jobs in eastern Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington and DC,” said Andrea McGimsey, with the Campaign for Loudoun’s Future and a resident of Ashburn.

“As the Loudoun Board of Supervisors is aware, the majority of Loudoun citizens have already spoken out against this project as recently as this summer. This outer beltway project is poorly planned, unneeded, and without funding. Citizens in Loudoun County require input on their future, not flip-flopping from elected officials,” said Mark R. Smith, a Loudoun resident, who represents the River Creek Regional Homeowners Association, a group comprised of muiltiple HOAs from around Loudoun County.

A Speculative Development Industry Dream
Speculative developers have been the biggest proponents of the project. A map produced by the NoSprawlTax.org campaign showed thousands of acres in the WTC corridor held by speculative landholders, while developers poured more than $2 million into the sales tax campaign (see: www.vpap.org). Developers then poured hundreds of thousands of dollars more into the last Loudoun election. This year, the Loudoun Board of Supervisors opened the Transition Area surrounding the proposed WTC corridor to public water and sewer. It is now considering applications for changes to the County Comprehensive Plan that would allow 42,000 new houses in the county – most of which would line the WTC corridor. See map at LoudounsFuture.org. 

“This is not about traffic relief. It is about opening these areas up to development. The public has repeatedly given this project the thumbs down. Allowing it to proceed as the priority of private speculative developers is not in the public interest and should not be facilitated by issuance of this PPTA request,” remarked Chris Miller, President of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Public-Private Partnerships Fail Financially and Reject Public Involvement
The Public Private Transportation Act (PPTA) process is already under scrutiny elsewhere in the state for failing financially. Many of the projects built under the PPTA or under previous public-private arrangements are requiring state subsidies and are not meeting their repayment goals. The Pocahontas Parkway (I-895) in Richmond, for instance, has not met expected use and toll revenues have been too low to recover the cost of the highway. Its bonds were downgraded to junk status, forcing an increase in tolls. To increase revenues, unplanned new interchanges are being proposed to spawn development and increase use of the road.

“Ironically, the resurfacing of the WTC as a Public-Private Partnership is completely at odds with what the public told VDOT in its own surveys, and what the public told Loudoun County during recent public hearings on the WTC, especially because it bypasses important opportunities for citizen and environmental review,” commented Chris Miller. A poll that VDOT recently conducted for its 20-year plan shows that “the most important issue for Virginians is the possibility that transportation projects may threaten the quality of the environment or the quality of life.”

VDOT’s announcement about the WTC coincides with Federal Highway Administration’s expansion of the loopholes in the PPTA process. These loopholes would permit the project to disregard environmental laws and would not require public input.

“Thus far in Virginia, the PPTA process has proven to both reduce the level of scrutiny of impacts on communities and the environment, and be a financial disaster. A bad project is a bad project, no matter how you finance it,” commented Olsen.

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For More Information, see the RFI (Request For Information) page on VDOT's website: http://www.virginiadot.org/business/rfi.asp