Imagine a new series of north-south Metrorail lines connecting Union Station and Judiciary Square to the Waterfront, or streetcars gliding up and down Constitution Avenue.
Metro officials are considering those ideas, as well as new bus rapid transit corridors and other transportation services, as they begin to craft a 30-year plan to handle the Washington area’s projected population and employment growth.
The region’s more than 5 million residents and countless visitors took roughly 345 million trips on Metro buses and trains last year. With the area’s population and employment expected to surge more than 30 percent during the next 30 years, Metro Board Chairman Peter Benjamin said the transit agency is working now to address the capacity issues of tomorrow.
“Metro needs to be looking towards its own future, and asking how do we carry the people that we’re going to need to carry 20, 30 or 40 years from now,” Benjamin said.
Metro’s policy and program development committee is set to review on Thursday an early draft of the agency’s Regional Transit System Plan, which lays out transit solutions ranging from additional rail lines downtown to new park-and-ride services.
“At this point, the plan is going to be very, very flexible,” Benjamin said. “It’s going to use every conceivable mode, and the question will be which mode makes sense where.”
Metro planning officials estimate the number of commuters taking trips downtown, which is the system’s “core” area, will grow by about 12 percent during the next 30 years, while trips between suburbs will balloon almost 45 percent.
Because of the expected growth in suburban commuting, Benjamin said it will be essential for his agency to work side-by-side with the regional Transportation Planning Board and state and local transportation officials when charting the area’s transit future.
Interagency coordination also will be important to pay for the system’s expansion, as Metro is already saddled with roughly $450 million in outstanding bond debt for improvement projects.
“The only way enough money shows up is if all these various jurisdictions are part of the process,” Benjamin said.
Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said he was “very encouraged” by Metro’s planning efforts.
“We’ve argued that we needed a next generation transit vision for our region, so I think it’s very appropriate to be analyzing these issues right now,” Schwartz said.
