Silver Lining: 'Traffic Will Always Be Bad in Northern Virginia', Lauren Sausser, Falls Church Patch, December 22, 2010

All that construction probably won't change how bad the traffic is.

In this series, Patch looks at the Silver Line, Metro's largest expansion in its 34-year history.

The Dulles Metrorail is expected to remove thousands of cars from Northern Virginia's roads and ease the daily gridlock that has come to characterize the region.

But some question whether traffic will ever improve — even with the addit
ion of the 23-mile Silver Line to the existing 106-mile Washington Metro system.

"There are some parts of the country that would be glad to have traffic, because it indicates someone wants to get somewhere. It's better than depression," said Zachary Schrag, an associate history professor at George Mason University, who specializes in transportation issues. "No jobs, no traffic."

Schrag said other metropolitan regions, like Houston, have simply continued to add lanes to their highways to accommodate more drivers.

"Part of the story here is this political debate about how we want the region to grow," he said.

The bottom line is that it is hard to predict ridership numbers for the new Metro line, Schrag said. But Eileen Curtis, president of the Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce, said she is confident that the biggest benefit of building the new line will be getting more drivers off the road and onto the Metro. . . .

The rest of this article is available here.  


Comment:  Fairfax County's Department of Transportation expects that, in 2030, more than a decade after the arrival of Metrorail in Reston, traffic congestion will more than double at key intersections near Reston's Wiehle and Reston Parkway station.  (See this presentation below.)  That estimate is based on development under the current Comprehensive Plan.  The new TOD development plans now under consideration by the Reston Task Force could see those delays increase significantly over the next 20 years.