Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is expected to announce his decision on how to build the Metro extension to Tysons Corner soon, and, according to reports, he favors building a rail tunnel under Tysons instead of above-ground rail. This is a misappropriation of hundreds of millions of dollars that would be better spent on other transportation improvement, including increased road capacity.
A report released yesterday from the Reason Foundation emphasizes the important need to expand that capacity. Of particular note to Mr. Kaine is the report’s conclusion that “congestion relief through provision of additional capacity is quite feasible, given current budgets.” In other words, as the lead author of the report, David Hartgen, told USA Today, there is less a need to spend more money and more of a need to “spend it more wisely.” The so-called tunnel option is a perfect example of transportation dollars being spent unwisely.
The report ranked the District fourth in its list of most congested cities, behind San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles. By 2030, however, the D.C. region will be third. To address the situation, the report recommends adding 1,800 new road miles at the cost of $16.2 billion. The District is 18th in terms of new roads needed and ninth in terms of cost (and it is important to note that this is a ranking among states, not metropolitan areas). “Increased capacity is the most important need,” said Mr. Hartgen, who is also a professor of transportation studies. “It is vitally important that all transportation projects be evaluated on cost effectiveness and hours of delay saved.”
The importance of cost-effective transportation solutions should not be lost on Mr. Kaine and Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer as they prepare to announce their final decision, which we expect to see shortly, on the tunnel option. Building the Metro to Tysons, and eventually to Dulles International Airport, is an important component of resolving the serious traffic problems in Northern Virginia. But it is just one component — and certainly not a panacea. Another component will be, as the Reason Foundation report concludes, more roads. Even as more people begin to use Metro, commuters that utilize public transportation make up only 13 percent of commuters in the Washington region, which means that construction of new roads still needs to be the primary remedy for transportation problems. Money spent unnecessarily on a below-ground rail is money that could have been spent productively on more roads.
As both Reps. Frank Wolf and Tom Davis advised Mr. Kaine, the most immediate challenge posed by tunneling under Tysons is complying with the strict Federal Transportation Agency cost standards, which is not an easy task even without a tunnel because of the level of development already around Tysons. The entire $900 million in federal funds secured for the Metro extension would, in fact, be jeopardized by adding the extra cost of a tunnel.
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