MD Beltway Widening..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You have to explain why. You can't just say, "bigger higheways just get more traffic". The reason why is because when the highway is made wider, it makes traffic better - the intended goal of the widdening. People look at commutes from further out thinking that the drive isn't that bad and far more people move further away from their office. Once enough people have done this to get cheaper housing with an easy commute, the roads are horrible and everyone hates their commute. People should be encouraged to live as close in as they can afford. We need building at Metro stations.

[Anonymous]

The other part of the why is that people usually optimize for their personal utility, finding the best combination of low cost and low time commitment. Since most of us already have the "sunk cost" of car ownership, we only think about the cost of driving in terms of the additional cost per mile of gas and maybe wear and tear if the commute is really long. Some people may take into account the cost of using a parking garage at work if they must pay that out of pocket. Unless a transit commute feels like it consistently takes less time and mental effort (that's where reliability is important) and costs a similar or lesser amount, drivers are reluctant to leave their cars. Widening freeways reduces the perceived cost of driving. Drivers do not recalculate that cost and compare it to alternatives often. As well, they may have other factors, like picking up children from school or daycare or errands that may make using alternative commuting options difficult once they have selected a job and house location.

[Anonymous]

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

It is called "induced demand" - there is no such thing as building more lanes permanently relieving traffic. The solution is to get a good rail system in place from Frederick to Shady Grove and Union Station. And Bus Rapid Transit dedicated lanes down to Friendship Heights and Silver Spring.

[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.

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

In Europe, South America and Asia, they use dedicated lanes to move more people faster. We have to do that here. The single occupancy vehicle is killing our country and our quality of life.

[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.

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.

The ICC was an ill-conceived project which may take 50 years to realize its capacity projections.

[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.

Virginia is a traffic nightmare. I have no idea where you are going that it is shangri-la compared to Maryland, but that sure isn't my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You have to explain why. You can't just say, "bigger higheways just get more traffic". The reason why is because when the highway is made wider, it makes traffic better - the intended goal of the widdening. People look at commutes from further out thinking that the drive isn't that bad and far more people move further away from their office. Once enough people have done this to get cheaper housing with an easy commute, the roads are horrible and everyone hates their commute. People should be encouraged to live as close in as they can afford. We need building at Metro stations.

No, when you make the highways wider, you are incentivizing more tract housing and strip malls further out, so more people move there with cars as the only mobility option. It has been this way since the 1940's.

[Anonymous]

Is there any clarity about the plan? Everything I have seen seems quite vague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there any clarity about the plan? Everything I have seen seems quite vague.

No, there is no clarity. Hogan jammed something through the Board of Public Works, 2-1, but nobody was sure what, including the members of the Board of Public Works (Hogan and Franchot) voting for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

It is called "induced demand" - there is no such thing as building more lanes permanently relieving traffic. The solution is to get a good rail system in place from Frederick to Shady Grove and Union Station. And Bus Rapid Transit dedicated lanes down to Friendship Heights and Silver Spring.

For example, the MARC Brunswick Line. Except for with trains that run all day long, in both directions, and also on weekends.

[Anonymous]

I hope all of the people who are posting thoughtful things here about transit have taken the time to be in touch with Hogan and their statehouse reps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

It is called "induced demand" - there is no such thing as building more lanes permanently relieving traffic. The solution is to get a good rail system in place from Frederick to Shady Grove and Union Station. And Bus Rapid Transit dedicated lanes down to Friendship Heights and Silver Spring.

For example, the MARC Brunswick Line. Except for with trains that run all day long, in both directions, and also on weekends.

Why can't we do both? I'm in favor of public transportation and highway widening. Population is growing in this area, so there is more demand. Even if everyone magically took public transport, we still need highways for commercial vehicles. Your plumber and the Giant delivery truck can't take Metro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You have to explain why. You can't just say, "bigger higheways just get more traffic". The reason why is because when the highway is made wider, it makes traffic better - the intended goal of the widdening. People look at commutes from further out thinking that the drive isn't that bad and far more people move further away from their office. Once enough people have done this to get cheaper housing with an easy commute, the roads are horrible and everyone hates their commute. People should be encouraged to live as close in as they can afford. We need building at Metro stations.

No, when you make the highways wider, you are incentivizing more tract housing and strip malls further out, so more people move there with cars as the only mobility option. It has been this way since the 1940's.

Lurker here. The reason why the traffic got worse after the last widening is because the DC metro region is still one of the metropolitan areas that has grown a lot and continues to grow. Since 1980, the population has more than doubled (it achieved double in 2016). In 1980 the regional population was 3.06M. In 1990 (that 30 year ago mark) it was 3.9M. As of 2016, it was 6.13M and it is currently 6.22M. In those 30 years, the housing has not doubled and that has forced the real estate prices up and forced the demand to spread further and further out to accommodate the continued migration of people into the region. In that time the annual growth rate has averaged 1.78%. The current growth rate if between 0.7% and 1% annually. Our population is expected to be up more than 2M by 2030. That means that the population will be up 33% to near 8.5M by 2030. The close in areas are already close to saturation. You may be lucky that with conversion to multi-family housing and some urban growth, to get maybe 6-10% more residences in the close in areas, but nowhere near the 30+% that is expected. There just aren't enough residences in the close in areas to handle that volume of increase, so people are going to be forced to move further out. Additionally that means that the demand closer in will be high and the real estate prices will continue to rise. The bulk of the middle class will be forced further and further out and be forced to commute. Even with increased public transportation spending, the system will not be able to handle that increase alone. So we are going to need a combination of both bigger roads and bigger mass transit systems. There is no way this region can continue along the predicted growth rate without both.

[Anonymous]

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.

It is called "induced demand" - there is no such thing as building more lanes permanently relieving traffic. The solution is to get a good rail system in place from Frederick to Shady Grove and Union Station. And Bus Rapid Transit dedicated lanes down to Friendship Heights and Silver Spring.

For example, the MARC Brunswick Line. Except for with trains that run all day long, in both directions, and also on weekends.

Why can't we do both? I'm in favor of public transportation and highway widening. Population is growing in this area, so there is more demand. Even if everyone magically took public transport, we still need highways for commercial vehicles. Your plumber and the Giant delivery truck can't take Metro.

Well we've already widened our highways - look at 270 and 495 in NOVA and 66 outside the beltway.

We've done some Mass Transit improvements but they really aren't commensurate with the population growth and demand. Even DC (and also Arlington) which has the most mass transit and most walkable neighborhoods and a population pretty willing to leave their cars at home has not built nearly enough transit. DC spends more on roads every year than public transit.

But the really stupid thing about the highway widening is it really only partially solves the problem (and even then for just a short period) - most of the jobs in the region are in close in dense neighborhoods and there is no space in those neighborhoods to expand the roads.

So sure widen 270 but you are just creating a greater bottleneck when all those cars get off the highway to go to their jobs in DC, Bethesda, Tysons, Rosslyn, Crystal City, Alexandria etc where there will be no increase in traffic capacity.

There is however still transit capacity in most of those areas.

[Anonymous]

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.

It is called "induced demand" - there is no such thing as building more lanes permanently relieving traffic. The solution is to get a good rail system in place from Frederick to Shady Grove and Union Station. And Bus Rapid Transit dedicated lanes down to Friendship Heights and Silver Spring.

For example, the MARC Brunswick Line. Except for with trains that run all day long, in both directions, and also on weekends.

Why can't we do both? I'm in favor of public transportation and highway widening. Population is growing in this area, so there is more demand. Even if everyone magically took public transport, we still need highways for commercial vehicles. Your plumber and the Giant delivery truck can't take Metro.

We've been building highways. And building, and building, and building. We know what happens when you build more highways to fix congestion: it doesn't work. Stop wasting money on it. Put the money into transit. (And then there will be plenty of room on the highways we already have for the plumber and the Giant delivery truck.)