MD Beltway Widening..

[Anonymous]

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.

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.)

As I mentioned above, the population is projected to increase 33% within the next 11 years. Where are those 2M new residents going to live? Even with buildups and converting green space to housing, you can't come anywhere close to housing the influx. So, the new residential housing will continue to move out of the city. And the number of residences that will be close enough to a good rail system is still limited. You will likely only have about 1/3 of that influx (say 750K) that will be ablet to take advantage of the improved good mass transit infrastructure. You will have over 1M incoming residents, plus existing residences that will be far enough away from mass transit as to make it a poor solution. Additionally, even if all of them were close enough to take advantage of mass transit or you found a way to incentivize it, even with upgrades, the system can only handle so many people. The Rosslyn tunnel is already at capacity with blue and silver line trains. You can increase 6 car trains to 8 car trains, but you can't add any more runs on the line, so there is a limit to how many additional people in Virginia along those lines can be accommodated. So, while a good transit infrastructure is desperately needed and will help the lives of many, it will not handle the vast majority of the incoming population growth who will need to use cars for various reasons.

As I said above, we need plans to improve both the mass transit and the road infrastructure or traffic and congestion in the second worse commuter city in the US will make it the worst commuter city by 2030.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As I mentioned above, the population is projected to increase 33% within the next 11 years. Where are those 2M new residents going to live? Even with buildups and converting green space to housing, you can't come anywhere close to housing the influx. So, the new residential housing will continue to move out of the city. And the number of residences that will be close enough to a good rail system is still limited. You will likely only have about 1/3 of that influx (say 750K) that will be ablet to take advantage of the improved good mass transit infrastructure. You will have over 1M incoming residents, plus existing residences that will be far enough away from mass transit as to make it a poor solution. Additionally, even if all of them were close enough to take advantage of mass transit or you found a way to incentivize it, even with upgrades, the system can only handle so many people. The Rosslyn tunnel is already at capacity with blue and silver line trains. You can increase 6 car trains to 8 car trains, but you can't add any more runs on the line, so there is a limit to how many additional people in Virginia along those lines can be accommodated. So, while a good transit infrastructure is desperately needed and will help the lives of many, it will not handle the vast majority of the incoming population growth who will need to use cars for various reasons.

As I said above, we need plans to improve both the mass transit and the road infrastructure or traffic and congestion in the second worse commuter city in the US will make it the worst commuter city by 2030.

In places where they aren't forced to drive long distances in single-occupancy vehicles on expensive, polluting highways in order to get to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

More cars will be electric in the future. Relax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As I mentioned above, the population is projected to increase 33% within the next 11 years. Where are those 2M new residents going to live? Even with buildups and converting green space to housing, you can't come anywhere close to housing the influx. So, the new residential housing will continue to move out of the city. And the number of residences that will be close enough to a good rail system is still limited. You will likely only have about 1/3 of that influx (say 750K) that will be ablet to take advantage of the improved good mass transit infrastructure. You will have over 1M incoming residents, plus existing residences that will be far enough away from mass transit as to make it a poor solution. Additionally, even if all of them were close enough to take advantage of mass transit or you found a way to incentivize it, even with upgrades, the system can only handle so many people. The Rosslyn tunnel is already at capacity with blue and silver line trains. You can increase 6 car trains to 8 car trains, but you can't add any more runs on the line, so there is a limit to how many additional people in Virginia along those lines can be accommodated. So, while a good transit infrastructure is desperately needed and will help the lives of many, it will not handle the vast majority of the incoming population growth who will need to use cars for various reasons.

As I said above, we need plans to improve both the mass transit and the road infrastructure or traffic and congestion in the second worse commuter city in the US will make it the worst commuter city by 2030.

In places where they aren't forced to drive long distances in single-occupancy vehicles on expensive, polluting highways in order to get to work.

And where in the DC metro region are those places where you can fit a few hundred thousand more people? Assuming that with 2M more people, that about 10-20% of them will live inside the beltway, where are you going to fit 200-400K additional people? And where outside the beltway will you fit the addition 1.6M-1.8M additional people where they don't have to drive long distances to get to work?

It's nice to have this fantasy of a non-urban sprawled area, but DC doesn't build up like many of the other major metropolitan areas, so you have a limit to the density that you can attain. And inside the beltway is already pretty dense. There isn't a lot of undiscovered territory where you can add buildings, so you are forced to convert single family or minimal family housing to multi-family housing. And there's a limit to how much housing you can create that way.

You are deluding yourself if you think that this metro area can continue to adapt for the growing population with only adding mass transit over the next 10 years. If you don't add highways and only add mass transit the average commute time for those people who cannot use mass transit will be over 2 hours each way. Fortunately, there are others who understand this issue. Yes, when you add the highways, it will not shorten commute times, but as the population grows, the commute times will not grow much longer than they already are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And where in the DC metro region are those places where you can fit a few hundred thousand more people? Assuming that with 2M more people, that about 10-20% of them will live inside the beltway, where are you going to fit 200-400K additional people? And where outside the beltway will you fit the addition 1.6M-1.8M additional people where they don't have to drive long distances to get to work?

It's nice to have this fantasy of a non-urban sprawled area, but DC doesn't build up like many of the other major metropolitan areas, so you have a limit to the density that you can attain. And inside the beltway is already pretty dense. There isn't a lot of undiscovered territory where you can add buildings, so you are forced to convert single family or minimal family housing to multi-family housing. And there's a limit to how much housing you can create that way.

You are deluding yourself if you think that this metro area can continue to adapt for the growing population with only adding mass transit over the next 10 years. If you don't add highways and only add mass transit the average commute time for those people who cannot use mass transit will be over 2 hours each way. Fortunately, there are others who understand this issue. Yes, when you add the highways, it will not shorten commute times, but as the population grows, the commute times will not grow much longer than they already are.

You could fit them just into DC. The population of DC used to be a few hundred thousand people higher than it is now.

Also, inside the Beltway is not already pretty dense. Most of the county is zoned to allow only single-family-detached housing. We need to change that.

But yes, you're right, land use needs to be part of the discussion. 270 is jammed with people who moved to Frederick County (for example, Urbana) and now want the state to spend a lot of money to make it easier for them to drive long distances for work. It's a disaster for the region, and also for the global climate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

More cars will be electric in the future. Relax.

Where does the electricity for electric cars come from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes it can. By having more density around metro stations and expanding BRT options. We don't need to keep building single-family tract housing on farms. that is the most wasteful use of land in human history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes it can. By having more density around metro stations and expanding BRT options. We don't need to keep building single-family tract housing on farms. that is the most wasteful use of land in human history.

We also don't need to preserve the supposed sanctity of exclusive single-family-detached zoning. Living next to a duplex or four-unit building won't harm you in your house with a yard. Neither will having a larger multi-family building down the street. And exclusive single-family-detached zoning in walking distance of a Metro station may be the second most wasteful use of land in human history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And where in the DC metro region are those places where you can fit a few hundred thousand more people? Assuming that with 2M more people, that about 10-20% of them will live inside the beltway, where are you going to fit 200-400K additional people? And where outside the beltway will you fit the addition 1.6M-1.8M additional people where they don't have to drive long distances to get to work?

It's nice to have this fantasy of a non-urban sprawled area, but DC doesn't build up like many of the other major metropolitan areas, so you have a limit to the density that you can attain. And inside the beltway is already pretty dense. There isn't a lot of undiscovered territory where you can add buildings, so you are forced to convert single family or minimal family housing to multi-family housing. And there's a limit to how much housing you can create that way.

You are deluding yourself if you think that this metro area can continue to adapt for the growing population with only adding mass transit over the next 10 years. If you don't add highways and only add mass transit the average commute time for those people who cannot use mass transit will be over 2 hours each way. Fortunately, there are others who understand this issue. Yes, when you add the highways, it will not shorten commute times, but as the population grows, the commute times will not grow much longer than they already are.

You could fit them just into DC. The population of DC used to be a few hundred thousand people higher than it is now.

Also, inside the Beltway is not already pretty dense. Most of the county is zoned to allow only single-family-detached housing. We need to change that.

But yes, you're right, land use needs to be part of the discussion. 270 is jammed with people who moved to Frederick County (for example, Urbana) and now want the state to spend a lot of money to make it easier for them to drive long distances for work. It's a disaster for the region, and also for the global climate.

Not true. Montgomery County is zoned for multi-family housing throughout the county. You need to keep up with the news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes it can. By having more density around metro stations and expanding BRT options. We don't need to keep building single-family tract housing on farms. that is the most wasteful use of land in human history.

We also don't need to preserve the supposed sanctity of exclusive single-family-detached zoning. Living next to a duplex or four-unit building won't harm you in your house with a yard. Neither will having a larger multi-family building down the street. And exclusive single-family-detached zoning in walking distance of a Metro station may be the second most wasteful use of land in human history.

Nobody wants to live in your communist apartment building. I'm tired of all the socialists and their pronouncements about what every piece of housing needs to look like. Many families like to live in houses.

[Anonymous]

PP commenting that the population is going to grow by 20%, where did you get your data? Please provide a link to your numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP commenting that the population is going to grow by 20%, where did you get your data? Please provide a link to your numbers.

Not PP but the US population in general has been growing and continues to grow. Most of that growth is in cities, like in this area.

In this area (the entire MSA), growth from 1990-2000 was 25% (about 1mln more people), and 2000-2010 was 15% (700k more people). The estimate based on 2017 numbers is about 580k more people just in the last 7 years (about 11%). I guess we'll have some hard number in about 2 years' time once the census is done.

Just the 580k in the last 7 years -- that's like taking about 1.5 Loudoun county's worth of people and adding them to this area. That's a huge amount by any measure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes it can. By having more density around metro stations and expanding BRT options. We don't need to keep building single-family tract housing on farms. that is the most wasteful use of land in human history.

We also don't need to preserve the supposed sanctity of exclusive single-family-detached zoning. Living next to a duplex or four-unit building won't harm you in your house with a yard. Neither will having a larger multi-family building down the street. And exclusive single-family-detached zoning in walking distance of a Metro station may be the second most wasteful use of land in human history.

Nobody wants to live in your communist apartment building. I'm tired of all the socialists and their pronouncements about what every piece of housing needs to look like. Many families like to live in houses.

It's just absolutely amazing that a basic statement of private property rights - Property owners should be allowed to build the kind of housing they want on the property they own - is described as communism/socialism/whatever. It's not. It's basic private property rights.

And, you know, if nobody wants to live in my communist apartment building, then nobody is going to build any communist apartment buildings. Who puts all that time and money into building housing that sits vacant? So you would have nothing to worry about EVEN IF my communist apartment building reduced your ability to choose to live in a house with a yard - which it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And where in the DC metro region are those places where you can fit a few hundred thousand more people? Assuming that with 2M more people, that about 10-20% of them will live inside the beltway, where are you going to fit 200-400K additional people? And where outside the beltway will you fit the addition 1.6M-1.8M additional people where they don't have to drive long distances to get to work?

It's nice to have this fantasy of a non-urban sprawled area, but DC doesn't build up like many of the other major metropolitan areas, so you have a limit to the density that you can attain. And inside the beltway is already pretty dense. There isn't a lot of undiscovered territory where you can add buildings, so you are forced to convert single family or minimal family housing to multi-family housing. And there's a limit to how much housing you can create that way.

You are deluding yourself if you think that this metro area can continue to adapt for the growing population with only adding mass transit over the next 10 years. If you don't add highways and only add mass transit the average commute time for those people who cannot use mass transit will be over 2 hours each way. Fortunately, there are others who understand this issue. Yes, when you add the highways, it will not shorten commute times, but as the population grows, the commute times will not grow much longer than they already are.

You could fit them just into DC. The population of DC used to be a few hundred thousand people higher than it is now.

Also, inside the Beltway is not already pretty dense. Most of the county is zoned to allow only single-family-detached housing. We need to change that.

But yes, you're right, land use needs to be part of the discussion. 270 is jammed with people who moved to Frederick County (for example, Urbana) and now want the state to spend a lot of money to make it easier for them to drive long distances for work. It's a disaster for the region, and also for the global climate.

Not true. Montgomery County is zoned for multi-family housing throughout the county. You need to keep up with the news.

No, being allowed to build a detached accessory dwelling unit under certain conditions does not count as multi-family zoning.

In Montgomery County, 35% of the land area is zoned for agriculture or open space, and 48% is zoned for detached single-family housing. That leaves 18% of the land area for everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And where in the DC metro region are those places where you can fit a few hundred thousand more people? Assuming that with 2M more people, that about 10-20% of them will live inside the beltway, where are you going to fit 200-400K additional people? And where outside the beltway will you fit the addition 1.6M-1.8M additional people where they don't have to drive long distances to get to work?

It's nice to have this fantasy of a non-urban sprawled area, but DC doesn't build up like many of the other major metropolitan areas, so you have a limit to the density that you can attain. And inside the beltway is already pretty dense. There isn't a lot of undiscovered territory where you can add buildings, so you are forced to convert single family or minimal family housing to multi-family housing. And there's a limit to how much housing you can create that way.

You are deluding yourself if you think that this metro area can continue to adapt for the growing population with only adding mass transit over the next 10 years. If you don't add highways and only add mass transit the average commute time for those people who cannot use mass transit will be over 2 hours each way. Fortunately, there are others who understand this issue. Yes, when you add the highways, it will not shorten commute times, but as the population grows, the commute times will not grow much longer than they already are.

You could fit them just into DC. The population of DC used to be a few hundred thousand people higher than it is now.

Also, inside the Beltway is not already pretty dense. Most of the county is zoned to allow only single-family-detached housing. We need to change that.

But yes, you're right, land use needs to be part of the discussion. 270 is jammed with people who moved to Frederick County (for example, Urbana) and now want the state to spend a lot of money to make it easier for them to drive long distances for work. It's a disaster for the region, and also for the global climate.

Not true. Montgomery County is zoned for multi-family housing throughout the county. You need to keep up with the news.

No, being allowed to build a detached accessory dwelling unit under certain conditions does not count as multi-family zoning.

In Montgomery County, 35% of the land area is zoned for agriculture or open space, and 48% is zoned for detached single-family housing. That leaves 18% of the land area for everything else.

What is with the disinformation campaign? The council changed zoning throughout the county recently. Detached accessory dwelling units are mulit-family zoning. The owner needs to live in the main house. They do not need to be related to the people living in the backyard house.