The Mid Atlantic: Under Construction

One of my sort-of "guilty pleasures" (if you can really call it that) is that I am somewhat of a road-geek.  In my spare time (what's left of it) I occasionally like to hop on YouTube and check out some of the latest highway videos from all of the various professional road geeks who film and picture roads like its their job.  It comes in really handy when you are about to embark on road trips to places that you have never visited before (in my case before I took my trips to Canton, Boston, and Urbana-Champaign).  You get a sense for what the road is all about.  Depending on how recent the pictures are, you get in idea of potential obstacles that could slow you down: traffic choke points, spaghetti interchanges, and..........road construction. 

Road construction: a sure sign of progress with a subtle tint of orange.  OK...perhaps it's not so subtle.  Who am I kidding?  It's in your face orange.  The states of Maryland and Virginia have seemingly been under a constant state of construction for the last 15 years.  As soon as one project ends, another one begins.  Subsequent projects always seem to be more ambitious than the projects before it.  Master plans are always changing.  I still remember when VDOT starting putting the first cones down for when they started the Mixing Bowl Interchange project.  For those of you in Columbia/Howard County, how many of you remember the days when Route 32 was just Guilford Road, 2-lanes between Route 108 and Route 29?  Even more, how many of you remember when Route 100 was a short stub between I-95 and Route 1?  Even earlier than that, how many of you remember days before Broken Land Parkway was expanded and interchanged over Route 29?  I do.  (Is that bad?)  As populations expand and suburbia sprawls even futher than ever imagined, road networks need to be updated and modernized to accomodate the increasing traffic.  As inconvenient as construction seems now, it really is necessary to keep interconnected regions like the Northeast Megalopolis moving and productive.  Today, we examine a few of the ongoing projects in Maryland and Virginia. 

Websites such as mdroads and aaroads, give you fairly up-to-date information about the status of certain construction projects.  Funding is always an issue when it comes to construction.  One of the objectives of Obama's stimulus law from 2009 was to provide funding to the states for construction projects to "put America back to work."  However, none of the projects that I am going to analyze in this post were funded either entirely or in part by the stimulus (evidenced by the conspicuous lack of signage on the road).  Road construction has always been (and really should remain) a state burden...with the very notable exception of the maintanance and expansion of the Interstate Highway System.  However, the subject of this post will be about pros and cons of the various projects ongoing in this region, not the political wrangling that preceded them.  Let's take a look at some of them after the jump.
-MD Route 200: The Intercounty Connector

I know I said that I would avoid political discussions when it comes to road construction, but it's almost impossible to avoid when discussing the ICC, a project that has been in the "planning stages" since the 1980s.  Right now, the most direct route connecting the suburban cities of Laurel and Rockville is to cut across I-495 between I-95 and I-270.  When these freeways were initially completed in the 60s and 70s, it was more than sufficient, but that didn't last long.  Populations would continue to grow exponentially.  Capacity of these roads (no matter what improvements have been or will be made) just cannot handle existing, must less future traffic loads.  Therefore, the concept of an ICC was developed very early on as part of an "outer beltway" of DC as part of the master plan of the 1980s.  One segment of that outer beltway was built: the Fairfax County Parkway.  However, just about every other project (including a proposed extention of I-95 through Northeast DC and the I-66 "inner loop freeway") was killed as a result of the freeway revolts in the 70s and 80s.  The basic premise of the freeway revolts in DC and Baltimore (and other cities) was based on the fact that proposed freeways were going to be built through parkland and existing neighborhoods...where land values were low (I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to why the land values were low).  The existing residents didn't want their communities and parks to be disrupted.  Meanwhile, traffic counts exploded and backups just grew longer.  Nevertheless, the ICC remained on the books throughout the 90s, despite Parris Glendenings efforts to kill it.  Bob Ehrlich vowed to bring it back, and sure enough, just before he was defeated by O'Malley the first time, he held a groundbreaking ceremony for what would eventually become MD Route 200. 

The ICC is a classic compromise between the environmentalists and the developers.  One of the major points of contention of the ICC was that it would go through parkland (for the most part residential neighborhoods were spared, save for the obvious noise and smog).  The compromise was that the road would be a toll road (to offset funding) operated by the MdTA and would be built so that it "blended in" with the park land as much as possible, also building bike trails and using other environmentally friendly construction methods.  The end result will be about a 17 mile freeway between I-370 in Rockville to Route 1 in Laurel.  This road will take so much stress off of the I-495 outer loop, especially in the morning.  EZ-Pass will be the only method of paying the tolls, which might seem a little defeating since it imposes a major restriction over who can use the road, but since most commuters already have EZ-Pass (due to the Dulles Toll Road and all of the Baltimore Harbor crossings) it really shouldn't matter all that much.  This also allows for "congestion based tolling," already in place in locations such as South Florida on their HOT lanes.  The tolls I feel are an acceptable evil to get the road built because once the road opens, expect traffic on the Capital Beltway in Montgomery County to improve precipitously, which will make all drivers happy. 

John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway Express Toll Lane (ETL) Project

This project serves two purposes.  One is to reconfigure the northern interchange between I-95 and I-695 in Overlea.  This was one of the most bizarre interchanges in the country, with both carriageways crossing over each other.  Check it out from up above here.  What a monstrosity!  As part of the ETL Project, this interchange has been completely overhauled.  Instead of that silly criss-cross configuration, drivers now can exit on the right and use flyover ramps to move from 95 to 695 and vice versa.  The other purpose of this project is to install Express Toll Lanes in the middle of I-95 between I-895 (another interchange that needed an overhaul and got it) and MD 43 in White Marsh.  When completed, this will be the only set of true ETLs in the entire country.  The concept is simple, using EZ-Pass (of course) you can move into the ETLs and bypass traffic by paying a toll.  The difference between these and other sets of special lanes will be that there is no free ride for HOVs.  Everyone must pay a toll if you want to use the lanes.  However, there will be congestion based pricing as with the ICC.  The original concept for I-95 in northern Baltimore County was to have an interior HOV lane between 695 and Route 24 in Bel Air (thus the addition of a 4th lane).  However, the powers that be realized very quickly that this would be far from sufficient to alleviate traffic on that stretch of highway during rush hour.  Thus, we have the advent of the ETL idea. 

As we'll see in the next item, I think HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes are an EXCELLENT idea.  It gives people incentive to carpool to avoid the toll (and fines).  However, ETLs give drivers no such incentive.  They just charge you for the privilege of using a pair of express lanes, no matter how many people are in the car.  Maybe it's just me, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of encouraging carpooling.  If I'm going to car pool (or just drive solo), I would just stay in the regular freeway lanes and let my other fellow motorists pay the luxury tax of an ETL (thus the nickname "Lexus Lanes").  We shall see when this particular project is finished if traffic is at all improved on this heavily traveled section of I-95. 

I-495 Capital Beltway HOT Lanes Project

This is the model that I feel the MdTA should follow with their express lane project.  As I said in the previous item, a HOT lane is a high occupancy toll lane.  If you are driving an HOV-2 vehicle (minimum of 2 persons in the car), you can use the HOT lanes for free.  If you are a solo driver (or if you have not registered HOV tags with VDOT), you can still use the lanes, but you will need EZ-Pass to access them and pay a toll based on congestion (congestion based tolling).  Now, I will say having been to Northern Virginia quite a bit in the last few weeks, this project is a pain in the you-know-what to drive through.  Constant lane shifting, narrow lanes, frequent closures, short merge areas, and jersey barriers right up against your car make for a very nerve-wracking driving experience.  However, thinking big picture, I feel like this will do wonders for the most traffic-snarled region in the state of Virginia.  Just look at The Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project , which used a local-express configuration to alleviate traffic coming to and from Alexandria, and having been over that bridge several times, I am quite impressed.  Traffic through there was abyssmal when the project was ongoing (nevermind the delays and cost overruns), but I think it is safe to say that the final product is well worth it.  This is why I can't get too angry when I drive through Tysons Corner on 495.  HOT lanes will do wonders to traffic off the mainlines, as they give drivers INCENTIVE to carpool instead of just charge a fee to use Lexus Lanes.  This concept is already in place in South Florida.  Check it out in this video.  The Northern Virginia project will make use of a brand new carriageway, instead of a barricaded interior lane, but the concept is essentially the same.  The lanes start at about 1:40 of the video. 

Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project: The Silver Line

Right now, if you want to go to Dulles Airport, the closest Metrorail stop is Vienna/Fairfax.  From there you can catch a bus.  How lovely is that?  If you want to drive it, you can take the Dulles Toll Road (VA 267), but lucky you...you don't have to pay a toll.  For quite some time, the car tolls on Route 267 were 75 cents for the mainline, 50 cents for the exits (The Greenway extension is a separate jurisdiction from the official Toll Road and will not be mentioned in this item).  In the last year, the price was increased twice, and will be increased again.  The mainline toll is now $1.25 and the exits are worth 75 cents.  Starting in 2012, the mainline toll will increase again to $1.50.   For years, the tolls were used to offset the cost of building and maintaining of Dulles Airport.  Now, finally, the Washington Metro will be coming to Dulles Airport by way of the Silver Line.  The Silver Line itself will be multiplexed with the Orange Line through Arlington and with the Orange and Blue Lines through downtown DC, terminating at the Stadium Armory station while the Orange and Blue Lines branch off into Maryland.  When completed, the Silver Line will allow a Metrorail passenger to commute directly to Dulles Airport without having to get off the train.  Needless to say, property values in the Reston and Herndon areas will necessarily skyrocket.  Reston resident (and Caputo's Corner reader) KSo stands to gain mightily when the line opens.  Of all of the construction projects analyzed in today's post, this one is by far the least intrusive, as it is staying within the median strip of Route 267.  Thus, traffic is only affected when entering and exiting the highway from I-495, but even that is more a result of the HOT lanes project.  This project makes sense, and when completed, will provide a vital link between the Capital and the region's busiest airport by far.  The toll increases are a painful pill to swallow in the meantime, especially for those who drive on the road during rush hour, but when completed, they stand to benefit greatly. 

I hope you all enjoyed our little "road trip" as it were of the major construction projects in the MD/DC/VA area.  If you know of any interesting construction projects that I should know about, leave them in the comments section!