July 16, 2025

Testimony to TPB on 495 Southside Study

The Visualize 2050 air quality modeling with and without the 495 HOT Lanes has not provided useful information for helping you to decide about whether to include the project in the regional plan. We raised concerns from the beginning that what was needed was a comparison to a transit, transit-oriented development, and demand management.

From the beginning the VDOT study has been fatally flawed by a conclusions-first approach – defining their purpose and need as “extending express toll lanes” which forecloses other alternatives. Moreover, they have not provided all the information necessary for an informed decision – particularly the traffic impact on connecting roads. Given the missing information and strong concerns expressed by Fairfax, Prince George’s, Alexandria, Charles, WMATA, and state legislators in Virginia and Maryland, this project is not ready for inclusion in the regional plan.

CSG has done in-depth analysis and presented extensive information to TPB on the flaws in the study.  But to boil it down:

1) Failure to study the risk of increased traffic on connecting roads – MD210, Route 1, Telegraph Road, and Van Dorn Street, or to recognize that the project would simply move the bottleneck into Prince George’s County.

a. VDOT says in its letter to MDOT that it is committing to doing further traffic analysis at some point after the NEPA study but by then it’s too late.

b. Reminder that VDOT said in its spring letter to TPB that it could start the traffic analysis on impacts to local arterials then, in parallel with its NEPA study.

2) VDOT has not explained its proposed giant HOT lanes ramp at I-295 that appears to block future rail from connecting to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge or at least severely restrict future options.

a. Will this ramp block future Metrorail?

b. If so, what will it cost to remove it for Metrorail and what would the other conversion costs be?

c. And who would pay for this? Hopefully not WMATA or the local jurisdictions.

3) Less discussed is the significant impact to trees and streams due to widening the highway in Fairfax and Alexandria.

4) And again, VDOT’s study has been biased from the beginning by their self-crafted Purpose and Need statement to “extend express toll lanes.” This automatically rules out any alternative except for highway widening and HOT lanes.

We should not be making multi-billion-dollar decisions without objectively analyzing alternatives and without all the information on the table.

Based on the above issues, we urge you to delay adding any 495 Southside project to the Visualize 2050 plan.

Stewart Schwartz
Executive Director