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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I remember when 270 was two lanes in each direction. It has been expanded numerous times. It is still congested.

Figure out a different way to grow, going to 16 or 20 lanes won't solve the problem.[/quote]

You have a misconception.  Yes, even though 270 has been widened several times, and it is still congested, you mistakenly think that other alternatives will solve the transportation problem.  The reason that the highway is still congested is that the population of Montgomery County has also continued to grow.  Whether you widen the highway or not, the population of the county will continue to grow.  In 1980, the population of the county was 4.2M.  In 2018, the population is just over 6.0M.   That's 143% or 43% growth over 38 years.  The reason that the highway is still congested is that the population has grown faster than the road and transit can accommodate.  The county population is currently projected to continue to grow 0.33% to 0.8% annually.  There is no way that mass transit alone can accommodate that volume of population growth.  You are going to need a combination of mass transit upgrades and highway expansion to accommodate the growth.

There's no way around the problem that the Washington DC metro region is one of the fastest growing metropolitan regions of the US and we have to come up with ways to accommodate the influx of people.  Mass transit alone is not going to do it. [/quote]

Somehow more populous regions in other parts of the country and world are able to accommodate many more inhabitants with fewer highways, lanes and cars. Look at just about any major Asian city as an example.

If you design for a car, you get cars.[/quote]

Relative to other metropolitan areas, Washington DC has high transit ridership ([url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_transit_ridership]3rd at 37.4%[/url]) and low miles of roadway per capita ([url=https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2015/hm72.cfm]10th lowest in the US proper[/url]).  The only places with fewer miles of roadway are in California, NYC, and (surprisingly) Miami.

There are a lot of differences between the US and asian countries that make proper comparisons difficult.  Compared to its peers in the US, the DMV is doing pretty well according to your metrics.

But, part of the reason why traffic is particularly bad here is that the roads are particularly bad.  While mass transit is pretty good, relatively speaking, roads are poor.  There's limited freeways going into the city from the north, the major bottlenecks that can cause serious backups when there's any sort of disruption (e.g., the bridges).

It's true- the DMV can't dig itself out of congestion by building more roads.  Only a combination of mass transit and smart growth can make strong improvements there.  But there's certainly room to make congestion a bit better with road construction, and in particular, make the road network more resilient to disruptions by creating multiple viable routes.  Honestly, I think things like widening major routes, like 270, aren't great ideas.  Induced demand will kick in (which I don't think is all bad- people have to live somewhere), so congestion will probably remain mostly unchanged. But, disruptions will lead to even worse congestion along those routes.

There's a practical reality that a lot of people are going to end up in the suburbs because options in the city either too expensive, or simply don't meet the desires of homeowners due to schools, yards, etc.  There's a practical limit to how dense some regions in the inner suburbs will get, which isn't going to be fully driven by what's most efficient.  So, realistically we have to accept there will be a lot of commuters in the outer suburbs, and we're going to have to accommodate them somehow.  Transit improvements will help, but there's only so much you can do 20+ miles out of downtown.  Roads have to be part of the solution.

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