MD Beltway Widening..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build more lanes and more people will drive there. Let’s face it, it’ll never get better.

Exactly this. Widening is well proven NOT to ease traffic in the long run. It just moves the traffic around, and eventually more cars take that route and everyone is in traffic again.

LA has 10 lane free ways that are at a stand still a lot of the time.

The only thing proven to ease congestion: mass transport. More buses, more trains, less parking and highways lanes.

noy everyone can afford to live inside the beltway

So what? There can be more buses, more trains, less parking, and fewer highway lanes outside the Beltway too. In fact, there should be.

So you favor people spending 3 hours each way waiting on and riding busses and trains, instead of an hour in their car.

Nice.

If we spent the amount of money on busses and trains that we currently spent on cars, the buses and trains would be amazing. We’d be healthier, safer, and the environment would be better off.

Traffic would be worse than ever. Do you ever pay any attention to how long it takes a bus to stop, load, and get moving again? Now add 5x more busses to that mix, each one slowly down everything around them.

That's a traffic nightmare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If we spent the amount of money on busses and trains that we currently spent on cars, the buses and trains would be amazing. We’d be healthier, safer, and the environment would be better off.

Traffic would be worse than ever. Do you ever pay any attention to how long it takes a bus to stop, load, and get moving again? Now add 5x more busses to that mix, each one slowly down everything around them.

That's a traffic nightmare

One bus can hold hold 60 people. Think about how much space on the road 60 cars occupy. Now think about how much space on the road 1 bus occupies.

Not to mention, of course, the dedicated bus lanes and plus other infrastructure for fast, efficient boarding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All they need is a bypass around the beltway to get the thru-traffic heading north or south on I-95 out of the mix.

30% of beltway traffic at rush hour volume is vehicles just passing through the dc area, not local traffic. If you eliminated that traffic, if would have the same effect as building 2 more lanes on the beltway.

Take I-95, route it down through Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro and Clinton, and tie it back in with express lanes on the WW bridge.

Problem solved.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All they need is a bypass around the beltway to get the thru-traffic heading north or south on I-95 out of the mix.

30% of beltway traffic at rush hour volume is vehicles just passing through the dc area, not local traffic. If you eliminated that traffic, if would have the same effect as building 2 more lanes on the beltway.

Take I-95, route it down through Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro and Clinton, and tie it back in with express lanes on the WW bridge.

Problem solved.

This.

You want to build another highway, at enormous expense, in 2019? Why?

[Anonymous]

The "induced demand" that if you widen a highway, it'll just get full is true in the _long run_ but not in the short term. Look at the ICC -- it's been open nearly 10 years and it's not jammed.

Besides, if adding lanes makes traffic worse, why do we even have a 4-lane beltway. Why not make it one lane each way? That will reduce traffic, right?

The proposal to not widen 495 and just tell everyone to take the ICC isn't some magical solution -- that option has been around since the ICC opened. It's not like ICC is some hidden road and people aren't aware of it.

Widening 495 will require taking land from property owners. However even in the worst-case scenario, the number of house/properties seized will be less than half the number being seize for the Purple Line. Ultimately, to build anything in this area, whether it be more highways or public transport, and there's a pretty high chance some land will need to be seized. That's what happens when the area is built up 100% already.

What I find interesting is the response from leadership. Elrich (CoExec) flubs around and their latest proposal is to tell people to use the ICC (I'm not kidding). The other County Council members just complain but offer no solutions of their own, then complain that MD is pushing this along. Well, many of those Council members have been in office for nearly a decade, and what have they been doing all this time? It's not like 495 and 270 congestion just popped up last week.

Hogan is the only one who seems to be attempting to make things happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All they need is a bypass around the beltway to get the thru-traffic heading north or south on I-95 out of the mix.

30% of beltway traffic at rush hour volume is vehicles just passing through the dc area, not local traffic. If you eliminated that traffic, if would have the same effect as building 2 more lanes on the beltway.

Take I-95, route it down through Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro and Clinton, and tie it back in with express lanes on the WW bridge.

Problem solved.

This.

You want to build another highway, at enormous expense, in 2019? Why?

Because it’s needed. Duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All they need is a bypass around the beltway to get the thru-traffic heading north or south on I-95 out of the mix.

30% of beltway traffic at rush hour volume is vehicles just passing through the dc area, not local traffic. If you eliminated that traffic, if would have the same effect as building 2 more lanes on the beltway.

Take I-95, route it down through Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro and Clinton, and tie it back in with express lanes on the WW bridge.

Problem solved.

This.

You wouldn’t even have to do that. Just double-deck the existing beltway with a “through lanes only” loop that traffic on 95 would use. No exits locally, it keeps all the transient traffic separated from the local area. And also doesn’t require using land for another road, since it would be on the existing beltway footprint.

And it would have the further advantage of keeping snow off the local lanes underneath it, meaning it would help local traffic in bad weather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All they need is a bypass around the beltway to get the thru-traffic heading north or south on I-95 out of the mix.

30% of beltway traffic at rush hour volume is vehicles just passing through the dc area, not local traffic. If you eliminated that traffic, if would have the same effect as building 2 more lanes on the beltway.

Take I-95, route it down through Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro and Clinton, and tie it back in with express lanes on the WW bridge.

Problem solved.

This.

You wouldn’t even have to do that. Just double-deck the existing beltway with a “through lanes only” loop that traffic on 95 would use. No exits locally, it keeps all the transient traffic separated from the local area. And also doesn’t require using land for another road, since it would be on the existing beltway footprint.

And it would have the further advantage of keeping snow off the local lanes underneath it, meaning it would help local traffic in bad weather.

Double deck would be a great idea, it's just massively massively expensive.

Just look at the costs to build the supports to hold the Silver line project so the train goes over the highway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All they need is a bypass around the beltway to get the thru-traffic heading north or south on I-95 out of the mix.

30% of beltway traffic at rush hour volume is vehicles just passing through the dc area, not local traffic. If you eliminated that traffic, if would have the same effect as building 2 more lanes on the beltway.

Take I-95, route it down through Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro and Clinton, and tie it back in with express lanes on the WW bridge.

Problem solved.

This.

You want to build another highway, at enormous expense, in 2019? Why?

Because it’s needed. Duh.

Have you been following the reports about climate change at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "induced demand" that if you widen a highway, it'll just get full is true in the _long run_ but not in the short term. Look at the ICC -- it's been open nearly 10 years and it's not jammed.

There are non-toll alternatives to the ICC that people are likely using instead for daily commuting. If you drive the full length of the ICC both ways during rush hour, it’s $8. That’s enough incentive to find alternate routes. Speaking of, tolling is a valid way to reduce Beltway congestion.

As for induced demand, go check out lists of the widest freeways in the US. They’re not the fastest roads. With 26 lanes Texas’s I-10 still suffers significant traffic delays. Yet, the widest part of the freeway is at Katy, TX, a burg outside of Houston with a population of just 18,000. That’s what induced demand looks like. Even still, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle last year, Houston residents had an average overall commute time of 50 minutes. They also experienced one of the highest rates of road crashes and fatalities in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So vote for people who want to widen public transport EVERY WHERE. Widening highways has absolutely no proven record of improving congestion. Increasing access to public and mass transit does.

Amen.

Look, I get that the bus system as it works now is a drag. And Metro is a disaster. But, my God, if you’ve traveled somewhere where transit works, it’s so great. I never miss having a car in environments like that. England has a so-so train system, and it’s wonderful to be able to reach most cities near London quickly and easily even late at night without advance booking. Asian countries really blow us out of the water. It’s ok to still have cats and use them, but we’ve got to do better demanding that our politicians give us alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So vote for people who want to widen public transport EVERY WHERE. Widening highways has absolutely no proven record of improving congestion. Increasing access to public and mass transit does.

Amen.

Look, I get that the bus system as it works now is a drag. And Metro is a disaster. But, my God, if you’ve traveled somewhere where transit works, it’s so great. I never miss having a car in environments like that. England has a so-so train system, and it’s wonderful to be able to reach most cities near London quickly and easily even late at night without advance booking. Asian countries really blow us out of the water. It’s ok to still have cats and use them, but we’ve got to do better demanding that our politicians give us alternatives.

And cars too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build more lanes and more people will drive there. Let’s face it, it’ll never get better.

Exactly this. Widening is well proven NOT to ease traffic in the long run. It just moves the traffic around, and eventually more cars take that route and everyone is in traffic again.

LA has 10 lane free ways that are at a stand still a lot of the time.

The only thing proven to ease congestion: mass transport. More buses, more trains, less parking and highways lanes.

noy everyone can afford to live inside the beltway

So what? There can be more buses, more trains, less parking, and fewer highway lanes outside the Beltway too. In fact, there should be.

You clearly don’t understand American car culture. It’s the new horse.

This is the "we do it that way so we should keep doing it that way because we do it that way" argument.

Widening highways to fix congestion is throwing money down a hole. A lot of money. Time after time after time. Let's stop doing that.

Maryland HAS done it your way for the last 30 years, at least. Despite huge population growth, the attitude has been, let's make it so miserable to drive that people will be forced on to Metro. Contrast that to VA, and amazingly, as soon as I cross the bridge, the traffic gets better. Are there still some jams in VA, sure, but most of them I can pay to get around if I really need to. Love the ICC, which has made so many trips so much faster. I wholeheartedly support widening 270 and I live just a few blocks from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build more lanes and more people will drive there. Let’s face it, it’ll never get better.

Exactly this. Widening is well proven NOT to ease traffic in the long run. It just moves the traffic around, and eventually more cars take that route and everyone is in traffic again.

LA has 10 lane free ways that are at a stand still a lot of the time.

The only thing proven to ease congestion: mass transport. More buses, more trains, less parking and highways lanes.

noy everyone can afford to live inside the beltway

So what? There can be more buses, more trains, less parking, and fewer highway lanes outside the Beltway too. In fact, there should be.

You clearly don’t understand American car culture. It’s the new horse.

This is the "we do it that way so we should keep doing it that way because we do it that way" argument.

Widening highways to fix congestion is throwing money down a hole. A lot of money. Time after time after time. Let's stop doing that.

Maryland HAS done it your way for the last 30 years, at least. Despite huge population growth, the attitude has been, let's make it so miserable to drive that people will be forced on to Metro. Contrast that to VA, and amazingly, as soon as I cross the bridge, the traffic gets better. Are there still some jams in VA, sure, but most of them I can pay to get around if I really need to. Love the ICC, which has made so many trips so much faster. I wholeheartedly support widening 270 and I live just a few blocks from it.

I drove on I-66 to PWC for 10 years. I assure you, traffic in Virginia is much worse than Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Maryland HAS done it your way for the last 30 years, at least. Despite huge population growth, the attitude has been, let's make it so miserable to drive that people will be forced on to Metro. Contrast that to VA, and amazingly, as soon as I cross the bridge, the traffic gets better. Are there still some jams in VA, sure, but most of them I can pay to get around if I really need to. Love the ICC, which has made so many trips so much faster. I wholeheartedly support widening 270 and I live just a few blocks from it.

I guess you forgot the last time 270 got widened, which was less than 30 years ago. Within less than 10 years, it was just as backed-up as before, only it was much wider, there were more cars on it, air and water pollution were worse, noise pollution was worse, and Maryland had thrown a huge amount of money down a hole.

Bigger highways just get you more traffic.

Put the money into transit so that people have real choices for getting around.