Saturday, July 28, 2012

NOVA is strangled by traffic congestion








Northern Virginia is being strangled by traffic congestion and some of the highest taxes in America. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine gave away your Dulles Toll Road (DTR) so it could be the cash cow for Dulles Rail. If DTR tolls start soaring to pay for the Dulles Rail Bailout, beginning January 1, 2013, 35,000 more cars per day will be forced onto already-congested local roads, causing increased gridlock to the region. Can you afford another $1,125 in tolls per year? Do you want to spend more time idling in traffic, wasting $4.00/gal. gas? Say No Toll Increase!"


Dulles Rail triggers more, not less, traffic congestion

Dulles Rail doesn’t remedy traffic congestion and, indeed, triggers more development that, in turn, increases traffic congestion and causes a need for more road and non-rail transit improvements that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars more.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement for Phase 1, which was prepared by former Gov. Mark Warner’s administration in its waning days, shows (Table 6-2.2) that with the single exception of the Dulles Airport Access Road, no major travel route studied experiences an improvement in Level of Service because of Dulles Rail.
The additional traffic occurs despite the arrival of Dulles Rail; the construction of high-quality, mixed-use development at the four Tysons rail stations; the imposition of extremely aggressive Traffic Demand Management measures by the county and Tysons landowners to reduce volumes; and the availability of substantially more bus service serving Tysons. Yet, after 2030, the road network serving Tysons fails because of more automobiles and trucks. Therefore, between 2030 and 2051 — the end of the planning horizon — every new automobile trip to Tysons must be canceled by a new transit or pedestrian trip.
Comment from Reston Patch:
The Analyst2:26 pm on Saturday, July 28, 2012CC Mojo Wrote:
"We get better jobs, better commute, better living "
This comment epitomizes absolutely everything that's wrong with this Country. A collection of special interests, primarily developers and commercial realtors, presents a collection of unassociated prospects, ties them all together, presents them to the public, and the public believes them - not because there's a basis in fact, but rather because it's nice to believe it's true.
Rail has ->nothing<- to do with jobs. Companies are not going to spend millions of dollars relocating an office within the county to be near a rail station. Out of state companies will not relocate here at a cost of perhaps 10's of millions of dollars just because there's rail.
We heard similar arguments in the dot-com boom. "If we build it, they will come, because N.Va. is the self declared head of the dot-com industry." They built it - no one came, except some companies that were so poorly managed (stupid) they all went bankrupt. Many of the buildings are **still** empty.
I'm afraid we need some new leaders, and leaders that represent the people, not special interests. If you look into the backgrounds of  the board of supervisors members, I think you will come to realize that some, if not most of them, have no business or even qualifications for making decisions of such scope. Special interests must surely find these people an easy target.
If the jobs don't happen, or worse yet they start leaving, don't say I didn't warn you. 




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