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Region's Traffic: From Bad To Worse
Express Toll Lanes Promoted in Study
By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 16, 2006; A01
Vehicles crawl into the District from I-395 yesterday. Traffic flow is deteriorating across the region, a study says. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
Express Toll Lanes Promoted in Study
By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 16, 2006; A01
Highway congestion has grown so severe that virtually all of the Washington region's main commuter routes are chronically clogged and unable to move motorists efficiently, according to a regional study released yesterday.
Drivers on some highways designed for mile-a-minute travel are lucky to make five miles in an hour. Freeways that were manageable three years ago, such as the Dulles Toll Road, are now bumper-to-bumper at peak times. Congestion on some highways has doubled in three years, when the last study was released.
At the worst hour, between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. weekdays, a quarter of all freeway lanes in the Washington region are completely congested.
Sprinkled into this snapshot of a region traffic-choked at nearly every turn are a handful of success stories. An added carpool lane on Route 50 in Maryland has improved the morning rush, and revamped interchanges in Tysons Corner and Springfield have eased tie-ups on the Capital Beltway.
Nonetheless, the picture from the region's roads is one of sustained misery, where one route after another is filling up ever faster with traffic.
"Growth in traffic is outpacing growth in capacity, and that's the continuing story here, unfortunately," said Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which conducted the study. "Facilities that were adequate just a few years ago just are not sufficient to handle current levels of traffic."
The report, which the council publishes every three years, provides the most definitive look at traffic in the region. The council took 80,000 photos from the sky last spring, capturing every section of highway, measured from interchange to interchange, of the region's major commuter routes a minimum of 12 times. Congestion was determined by measuring how many cars were on the roads during the morning and evening rushes, between 6 and 9 a.m. and 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.
The study's detailed analysis differentiates it from an annual report done by the Texas Transportation Institute, which ranks the traffic and congestion of different regions. Washington holds a firm grip on having the third-worst traffic in the nation, according to that study.
The report comes at a time when leaders across the region are debating whether to dedicate more money for transportation improvements. The Virginia General Assembly is locked in a fight over whether to raise taxes to generate nearly $1 billion a year for traffic relief or to rely on new fees and state surpluses to raise a lesser amount.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who supports the tax increases, has also proposed changes in land-use planning to reduce traffic problems. Regional leaders are also debating whether to guarantee a source of revenue for Metro transit.
Transportation experts said they knew the region's traffic was bad -- but not this bad.
"It's even worse than what we would have expected," said John Townsend, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "This is a template to know where the problems are. For political leaders to have this report and do nothing is akin to doing nothing while Rome burns."
The council's report shows a commuting pattern that moves from homes on the east side of the region to jobs in the west each morning, with the reverse in the afternoon. This results in chronic bottlenecks, such as on the inbound lanes of Interstates 66 and 395 in afternoons, that are a reversal of traditional commuting patterns.
Kirby said the findings show that the challenge ahead is not only to build more roads but also to find a better balance between where people live and where they work. "If you got more employment growth in the east, you could balance out that traffic," he said.
The report found that the worst commuting spots are on the inner loop of the Beltway between Interstate 270 and Connecticut Avenue from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. and on I-395 between Pentagon City and the 14th Street Bridge from 5 to 6 p.m.
Cars average 5 to 10 mph through those stretches at those times, numbers that translate into levels of service so poor that they are literally off the charts used by transportation experts to measure performance.
The report also gauged the 10 spots that have changed most dramatically over the last three years. No stretch of road was on both lists, suggesting the worst spots are not getting better while others are rapidly becoming worse.
Among the 10 segments changing the fastest, there was one, ranked seventh, that was actually improving. The big winners are commuters who travel in the morning on the westbound side of Route 50 in Maryland, where a carpool lane was added since the last study.
But there's also evidence that such relief could be fleeting: A carpool lane that was added to the Dulles Toll Road before the 1999 study resulted in noticeable improvements early on, but six years later the road is completely congested.
The report also indicated that problems are mounting fastest in Virginia, home to four of the top five places on the list of roads where conditions are changing rapidly. "Virginia is getting a lot of the growth in employment and household growth," Kirby said. "Put those together, and you have traffic growth."
Kirby said the best short-term solution for Washington area commuters lies in express toll lanes, which are planned on almost all major commuter routes. Transportation officials are drawn to the concept because tolls could be adjusted according to traffic levels, allowing them to control congestion.
Express toll lanes "are the single biggest opportunity on the horizon to make major improvements within the next five to 10 years," Kirby said.
Another promising development for Washington area commuters is that Virginia leaders are planning to build express toll lanes on I-95/395 in the next few years, which could help alleviate congestion on three of the worst stretches of highway in the region.
A new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, half of which is scheduled to open in the spring, could also ease backups at another trouble spot, while the District is in the early stages of revamping the congested 11th Street Bridge.
The report showed "there are spot improvements that we can make," said Montgomery County Council member Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty), who also serves as chairman of COG's Transportation Planning Board. "We have to start to say: How do we take that next step? We can't just keep sticking our neck in the sand."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
