Want to cut down the omnipresent congestion on Washington-area highways? Host a presidential inauguration.
Indeed, the Beltway got a temporary reprieve from oppressive traffic on Jan. 20, as road closings and bridge shutdowns kept people out of their cars.
But for the other 364 days of the year, the area needs something else. Organizations like the Coalition for Smarter Growth are lobbying for transit projects that shy away from highway expansion and to focus more on encouraging development around transit hubs.
Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the coalition, said that rather than widening lanes and building high-occupancy toll lanes, officials should examine charging peak rates for using existing lanes during rush hour, as Metro does.
The coalition was one of several groups that rallied against a Montgomery County plan this week to widen Interstate 270.
“We urge the County Council to reject the Planning Board’s misguided transportation recommendations, the result of which would be more cars on the highways and more traffic jams,” said Ben Ross, president of Action Committee for Transit, a Montgomery County citizens group.
County Council members this week discussed the widening, but did not vote. They also discussed HOT lanes for the highway and the Corridor Cities Transitway, a proposed light rail or rapid bus service that would run from the Shady Grove Metro Center to Clarksburg.
Schwartz said the key was to adopt a model similar to Arlington County or Old Town Alexandria, namely, focusing development near rail stations and transit centers.
“Ultimately, it ties to this issue of where and how we grow,” he said. “In some respect, highway expansion [can] just move the bottleneck down the road. You end up in a cascading series of road widenings and ultimately ask, “‘Is this ever going to have an end?'”
