Kaine's Manassas town hall
Some interesting solutions were offered at Governor-Elect Kaine's transportation town hall in Manassas on Tuesday, among which were extending Metro's Orange Line to Gainesville and building Japanese-style double-decker highways. Extending the Orange Line beyond its current Vienna/Fairfax terminus makes sense because of the traffic that plagues the I-66 corridor, but adding a second level of freeway doesn't really make sense unless one portion is dedicated for bus and carpool use, with at least a restriction of three people so that it can encourage the kind of informal carpooling ("slugging") we see along the existing dedicated HOV-3 corridor on I-395 and 95.Kaine, as he said in the debates, reiterated his support for extending Metro to Dulles Airport, as well as widening portions of I-66 inside the beltway using the highway's existing footprint. What wasn't mentioned in the article, however, was the need for extending Metro's Yellow Line southward from Huntington to Fort Belvoir to cover the congested Richmond Highway corridor and accomodate the 30,000 office workers moving south out of Arlington due to the Defense Department's base closure plan. Another alternative to provide Metro to Fort Belvoir using fewer track miles would be to extend the Blue Line from Franconia-Springfield along Backlick Road. Still a third alternative would be to build a light rail line using dedicated pavement surfaces. In any case, expect traffic to get worse in Southern Fairfax County until a consistent, reliable Metro connection is built.
posted by Omar @ 10:26 AM
2 Comments:
it is interesting to note that Kaine was late to his own town hall meeting in Manassas, Va. Was he held up by traffic?
Do you know how late Tim Kaine was to his own Town Hall meeting in Manassas, VA?
Post a Comment
<< Home