Audrey Clement's Statement at Feb. 2016 TPB Meeting

Audrey Clement, Ph.D.

Member, Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation

February 20, 2016

As you know, a plan recently approved by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) that would have tolled I-66 inside the Beltway in 2017 and widen it later only if necessary was scuttled in a deal worked out between Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and tolling opponents in the Virginia General Assembly.

Under the new plan VDOT will widen eastbound I-66 between the Dulles Toll Road and Exit 71 at Fairfax Drive in exchange for federal highway funds to pay for the added lane--at a cost of $140 million--and tolls to pay for more transit. The Governor bills the deal as a compromise and says he’s happy with it. Another official who is happy with it is Delegate Jim LeMunyon of Centreville, who led the opposition to tolling I-66.

Even as he whipped up anti-tolling hysteria along the I-66 corridor, LeMunyon didn’t oppose tolling himself. He just opposed tolling without widening. Yet a cost benefit analysis mandated by HB 599, legislation that LeMunyon himself sponsored in 2012, shows tolling alone as the most cost effective solution to congestion on I-66 on every object metric reported.

http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/resources/2015/dec/pres/Presentation_I66Inside.pdf

Nevertheless Governor McAuliffe thinks he’s dodged a bullet, because tolling opponents could have insisted on widening I-66 all the way to Rosslyn.

In fact that is precisely what Delegate LeMunyon wants to do. He is the principal patron of HJR 110, which requires the Virginia Secretary Transportation to study:

•  adding “one, two, and three new lanes and multi-modal capacity to Interstate 66 in each direction between the Capital Beltway and Washington, D.C.”; 
• combining Route 29 and I66 in Arlington into a limited access, double deck highway;
• buying up land for additional lanes; and
• selling air rights to pay for it.

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?161+ful+HJ110

My principal objection to the “compromise” is not that it will dump induced traffic at a key intersection in Ballston where plans for 1,000 new units of hi-rise housing with parking are also in the works—thus making Ballston a dangerous place to walk or ride a bike. Think Tysons Corner. My objection to the deal is that it is just the first leg in a plan that will ultimately pave over Arlington with an eight to ten lane super highway as per HJR 110 and dump the induced traffic at the terminus of I-66 on Constitution Avenue in DC.

ACST Statement at Feb. 2016 TPB Meeting

Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation

Statement to the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board

by Allen Muchnick, president, February 17, 2016

I’m Allen Muchnick with the Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation (or ACST).  Since 1999, ACST has advocated "wiser, not wider" management and multimodal improvements to I-66 inside the Beltway, to most effectively move people and minimize highway congestion and travel times.

One year ago, VDOT proposed the I-66 inside the Beltway Multimodal Project for addition to the CLRP.  Since then, this project was substantially modified in several ways, in response to feedback and pushback from the public and some of their elected officials.  In particular, the restoration of HOV-3 was delayed until after 2020, HOV requirements and tolling in the reverse-commute direction were dropped entirely, and the completion of a four-mile eastbound widening of I-66 to Ballston was advanced from approximately 2025 to 2019.  The new CLRP project description form for this project, dated February 10, needs to be updated already to incorporate VDOT’s upcoming environmental assessment study for the four-mile eastbound widening.

Ever since the landmark 1977 Coleman Decision was nullified by Congress in 1999, our region has suffered from the lack of an adopted long-term management plan for this key multimodal corridor.  While VDOT’s 2011-2013 I-66 Multimodal Study pointed in the right direction, the changes to the Multimodal Project over the past year were partly a step backward.

VDOT’s upcoming NEPA study for the four-mile eastbound widening is a critical opportunity for our region to develop and adopt a new long-term management plan for this entire corridor between I-495 and Rosslyn.  Besides evaluating, avoiding, minimizing, and fully mitigating the adverse impacts of the wider highway on adjacent communities and the natural and built environment, the upcoming NEPA study should develop and establish an accepted ongoing process to determine: 1) how and when HOV requirements and tolls should be expanded in the reverse-commute direction and even during peak weekend hours and 2) how and when HOV-3 should be restored.

The NEPA study should also carefully ascertain that the proposed four-mile eastbound widening does not create new eastbound bottlenecks where travel lanes are dropped at the East Falls Church and/or Ballston exits.

To best evaluate the merits of the proposed widening, the No Build Alternative for this NEPA study should include the peak-direction HOT operations that are scheduled for implementation by summer 2017, and at least one Build Alternative should include HOT operations in both directions without the widening.   

In conclusion, we ask the TPB to ensure that the upcoming NEPA study for the four-mile eastbound widening of I-66 is carefully scoped and crafted to develop and establish a new and robust long-term plan for wisely managing the I-66 inside the Beltway Multimodal Corridor for many years to come, to best move more people and minimize highway congestion and travel times.