Once again, Arlington County officials are blocking long-overdue improvements to Northern Virginia’s overly congested highways. When Arlington officials derailed attempts to expand Interstate 66, their obstinacy could at least be defended on principle, as the federal government promised that I-66 would never be widened within county limits. Fair enough. But there’s no such rationale for the current Arlington County Board’s peevish jeremiad to block HOT lanes on Shirley Highway. According to the county’s lawsuit, HOT lanes supposedly violate minority residents’ civil rights because they would unfairly favor “a financially-able privileged class of suburban and rural, primarily Caucasian residents from Stafford and Spotsylvania Counties … to the detriment of minority communities in Arlington.”
This cynical attempt to play the race card fails on its own merits. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Arlington is more Caucasian (80 percent) than either Stafford (76.6 percent) or Spotsylvania (79.4 percent). Charges that Pierce Homer, former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s transportation secretary, “acted with the ‘implicit intent’ to harm minority and vulnerable populations and benefit predominantly Caucasian Virginians are not credible and frankly are an embarrassment to this region,” local business leaders in the I-95/395 corridor said in a letter urging the board to drop the case.
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Instead, in a move that was stunning in its arrogance, Arlington officials added Federal Highway Administration environmental specialist Edward Sundra to its list of defendants — in both his official and individual capacities. Apparently, the 30,000 Arlington residents who work for the federal government are now seen as fair game for litigation by board members who disagree with federal policy decisions. So, despite Arlington County Board Chairman Jay Fisette’s demurral that “the goal here is not to obstruct,” the board’s lawsuit remains the primary obstacle to a project that will increase capacity on an existing road at little or no cost to taxpayers.
For the record, HOT lanes would be free to buses and car pools, but solo drivers could also access them for a price, thus raising money for other badly needed transportation projects. The joke is the HOT lane project amounts to little more than repainting existing HOV lanes and creating three narrower lanes where there are now two. That’s why FHWA granted the state a “categorical exclusion” to environmental requirements in the first place. Adding tragedy to farce is the fact that this mindless obstruction of HOT lanes has already cost Arlington residents a cool $1 million, and, if it is allowed to go forward, will end up costing many more people elsewhere.
